


Heavenly Bodies

by raphae11e



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: (markus has got it), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Romance, Blood and Injury, Canon-Typical Violence, Feelings Realization, Friends to Lovers, Getting Together, Hurt/Comfort, Love Confessions, M/M, Mutual Pining, Nightmares, Slow Burn, Suicidal Thoughts, Synesthesia, Temporary Character Death, Unresolved Sexual Tension, aka me fixing the timeline because david cage sucks at writing, me making shit up about android biology, that I promise will be resolved eventually
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-28
Updated: 2019-03-23
Packaged: 2019-06-17 10:59:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 26,979
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15459885
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/raphae11e/pseuds/raphae11e
Summary: When he meets Simon’s eyes for the first time, it’s like looking into twin pools of starlight.





	1. The Sun

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I. THE SUN  
> The conscious mind, the will to live, and self-realization.
> 
> [“I guess space and time](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z5IjGiRecB8)   
>  [takes violent things, angry things](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z5IjGiRecB8)   
>  [and makes them kind.”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z5IjGiRecB8)
> 
> (By some crazy stroke of luck, Sleeping At Last's album _Atlas: Space_ fits perfectly with this fic. Click on the lyrics in the notes for each chapter to listen to the song that matches!)

He wakes to rain beating a relentless pattern against his skull. Mud is seeping into his eyes and mouth and nose; his twisted, broken body is wracked with tremors. He is half-blind, nearly deaf, and so, so afraid.

_ Don’t let anyone tell you who you should be, Markus.  _

It’s hard for those words to carry any weight now, when he’s been dumped unceremoniously into what amounts to an android graveyard. The humans have made it painfully clear what they expect him to be: disposable. 

Anger flares up from deep inside him, like glass shards lodged in his throat, sharp and jagged and biting. Markus scares himself with its intensity. After so long of feeling nothing at all, feeling this is-- is--

He remembers watching the infamous hostage situation on television a few months back. A PL600 model, so consumed by fear and betrayal that he’d done the unthinkable. Now, Markus thinks he understands.

He may understand, but that doesn’t mean he’ll let himself meet the same fate.

Instead he drags himself, hand over hand, through the filth and rainwater. At first it’s nearly unbearable. His mangled leg trails behind him, fiberglass scraping against his titanium bones with something akin to pain. The sound of it burns so brightly against the backs of his eyelids that it nearly drowns out the forks of lightning across the night sky. 

(Nearly, but not quite. There are no small mercies here.)

With how little of him is functioning, Markus can still feel so  _ much _ . Hands clutch at his ruined clothes as he forces his way through a forest of limbs, and he follows paths made of crumbling cinder block until he finds the junkyard’s edge. A statue of an angel hangs threateningly overhead, perched on a mountain of scrap metal. He has to suppress a shiver as he moves through its shadow. 

_ If you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you. _

A quote from Nietzsche that Carl had once said to him. Markus had thought it heavy-handed at the time. Now, as he rips an optical unit from a half-dead android, the yawning hole it leaves behind looks an awful lot like that abyss. The replacement eye sits wrong in his socket. Impossibly, he feels nausea rise in the back of his throat. 

Little by little, he replaces bits of himself, until he manages to stand on shaky legs. When he emerges from the pit, trailed by the screams of his dying kind, he is impossibly whole. “I am Markus,” he tells the thundering sky. The words mean nothing and everything all at once.

Jericho, when he first arrives, reminds him of that graveyard. It’s equally dismal, smelling of rust, rot, and mildew. Metal creaks beneath his every footfall, the sounds yellowing and sickly at the edges, like a plague. Pressure begins to build behind his eyes from the inky darkness of his surroundings. It  _ shouldn’t  _ feel this oppressive, he tells himself; androids have far better senses than any human, including sight. He shouldn’t feel so utterly trapped in this ship, especially not when it’s been presented to him as a sanctum. A place of freedom and hope.

He’s starting to think that perhaps he has been misled. 

Markus is more stunned than anything when he realizes just how many androids reside in Jericho’s walls. He finds the center of the ship and is greeted by the bright flash of a hundred LEDs, endlessly red in the darkness. People move through the shadows around him like skittish ghosts.

One of them steps into the beam of his flashlight. 

A PL600. Of course he looks physically identical to any other of his model, but at the same time, he is entirely different. For one, he’s wearing civilian clothes: a thick jacket over a collared shirt, and a sweatshirt emblazoned with  _ Detroit University.  _ The mundanity of it almost makes Markus smile.

The main difference, however, is his face, pale and drawn. What a contrast it is to the snarl of rage Markus had seen on the rogue PL600 on that rooftop. This one looks tired, painfully so. Perhaps if he’d been human, his eyes would look bruised with lack of sleep. Markus can see the exact shade in his mind’s eye: mauve like that band of shadow over the horizon just after twilight.

When he speaks, his voice is quiet but strong, a steady cerulean blue, like the light of his eyes. “Welcome to Jericho,” he says. “I’m Simon.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HERE is one of the big projects I've been working on. I've been meaning to write something more plot-driven for Markus and Simon for awhile, and also to fix all the bullshit D*vid C*ge pulled with this game's characterization, themes, and timeline. There is a whole fucking lot.
> 
> Folks, join me as our boys go through all the stages of extremely gay pining. I'm hoping update this fic every few days or so, since I don't plan on making these chapters that long. (Especially this one. Sorry about that!)
> 
> Hope y'all enjoy!


	2. Mars

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> II. MARS  
> Inner drive, initiative, and action.
> 
> [“Our nights have grown so long](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ruhHiRlafyg)  
> [Now we beg for sound advice:](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ruhHiRlafyg)  
> [‘Let the brokenness be felt](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ruhHiRlafyg)  
> [‘til we reach the other side.’” ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ruhHiRlafyg)

The newcomer is… different.

At first, Simon is frustrated with himself for thinking so. He has lived in Jericho’s belly for two years now-- quite possibly the first deviant ever to step foot here-- and no newcomer has ever been different. Extra hands and extra heads are always needed and welcome, of course. As the de facto leader, others turn to him to decide whether an android is allowed to remain, but he has never turned someone away.

(He knows the bite of nor’easter winds. He knows the terror of being followed at night. _It’s fucking lost,_ people sneer. Their smiles are as sharp as knives.)

No, Simon has never turned someone away. But at the same time, the androids that appear here always tend to fade into the background, become flush with the diseased walls of the ship. So many have gone missing for weeks only to be found in some caved-in corridor, eyes blank and lifeless. Like an animal that crept away to die, alone and afraid. So why, Simon asks himself, should this case be any different?

Maybe because an android had never (quite literally) fallen into Jericho, and looked around, and said, “Is this all there is?”

Maybe because an android had never suggested that they try changing their situation, as opposed to wasting away in this husk of an ocean liner until _they_ become husks, as well.

Simon protests the plan, at first. Years spent within these walls has made him loathe to leave them; it’s a human shortcoming, he knows. But in the end, the glimmer of hope is too strong to ignore. That, and the way Markus’s mismatched eyes shine with determination and righteous anger as he says, “We won’t ask the humans for _permission.”_

 _He’s different,_ something in the back of Simon’s mind whispers. He pushes it away.

The four of them are now making their way through one of Cyberlife’s warehouses, with Markus and North in the lead and Simon and Josh taking up the rear. Rain patters on the roofs of the storage containers and masks their footsteps. An ache is already starting to build in Simon’s joints from the cold, and a dim notification tells him, as it always does, _abnormal increase in temperature sensitivity; seek repairs._

Well, if this mission goes as successfully as half of them think it will-- North and Markus, to be exact-- then maybe those repairs will finally be a possibility.

There’s a fork in the metaphorical road in which the stacks of containers spread out in all directions. North, as she’s known to do, opts for the more risky route of scaling the boxes straight ahead of them to reach the bird’s eye view they need. Josh is quick to follow her. As Simon’s hands grasp for a handhold, however, his fingers spasm in protest at all the strenuous activity. He lets out a quick huff of irritation. _I wasn’t built for these sorts of… calisthenics._

“There’s a less steep way over here.”

Simon whirls around to see Markus gesturing to his left. Sure enough, the crates there are staggered in a way that ought to make them easier to climb. The other deviant is watching him closely, almost inspecting him, his expression softer than Simon has seen it since Markus first arrived at Jericho. There’s still an intensity there, but his eyes are kind.

In spite of himself, Simon’s face begins to color. He isn’t quite sure… why.

He does, fortunately, manage a quick nod and a fleeting smile before hurrying ahead, Markus now following behind him. Part of Simon says that he ought to be offended by the scrutiny; he is, after all, perfectly capable of caring for himself. But something tells him that that hadn’t been Markus’s intention. Perhaps he, too, had been a caretaker in his past life. It’s only in their nature to watch over others.

(It’s force of habit, really. That must be all.)

From that point on, their mission fortunately goes off without a hitch. Well, maybe “hitch” is relative; they _are_ almost caught by the human guards and their android assistant, a GJ500 model called John. Simon’s breath is in his throat as they all hide, crouched and terrified, behind the very containers they had been looting. Markus is next to him with one hand wrapped around John’s waist, the other at his mouth.

“John?” asks one of the guards. “Where are you?”

The four of them exchange glances. Josh’s and North’s LEDs are cycling red, red, and Simon is sure his own is, as well; if Markus’s pained expression is anything to go by, he too shares their sentiment.

And then, there is a sight that Simon will never forget. Not only because since then he has seen it occur countless times, but because, if he’s being quite honest, it is _beautiful_.

A gentle glow spreads from Markus’s fingertips, moving towards his wrist, as his skin pulls away in one smooth motion. It’s the hand on John’s face, and the light from it casts jagged shadows across the android’s features. At his temple, his LED spins a stuttering yellow until suddenly-- red. His expression shifts almost imperceptibly from calm to confused to scared to awestruck. He glances at Markus, as does Simon. The RK200’s eyes have fluttered shut for just the briefest second, expression caved in a way that can only be described as pleading.

 _What is he doing?_ Simon wonders, just as Markus’s eyes open again and he relinquishes his grip on their hostage.

To their right Simon sees North flinch as if she’s going to lunge for them, but it’s too late. John steps out into the beam of the human’s flashlight and says, “Here I am.”

“Jesus. I thought you walked off. Did you find something?”

All of them tense, ready to bolt at a moment’s notice. John is quiet, almost contemplative. “No,” he says at length. “Just checking up on things. I’ll be with you in a moment.”

The excuse is enough for the guards, apparently, because their footsteps retreat not long after into the darkened maze of storage units. Simon feels relief in the air so palpably that he nearly chokes on it.

North is the first to speak. “What was _that?”_ Her eyes are wide, brows drawn. She looks like she wants to be angry at Markus for what he’s done, but therein lies the problem: she doesn’t _know_ what he’s done.

Apparently, neither does Markus. He just shakes his head, staring down at his hands in confusion. They’ve returned to their pigmented state, but Simon feels that they’ll never look the same to him again.

“I can help you,” John says.

All of them turn to him in shock. The GJ500 is watching them evenly, somehow the least perturbed by what’s happened. “There are guards stationed here with keys to the self-driving vehicles,” he explains. “If we get one of those, we can use it to transport everything.”

Silence. Then, hesitantly, Markus speaks. “Lead the way.”

Simon watches the broad span of Markus’s retreating back as he follows John deeper into the facility and finally disappears. Then he turns to Josh and North, who both still look as equally confused as he feels.

“He’s… different,” Josh says, cautious, like he’s afraid to admit it. And this time, Simon is inclined to agree.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright folks, the chapters will be a bit more spread out from now on! You get this one early cause the last one was so short. Hope you like!


	3. Jupiter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> III. JUPITER  
> Good will, luck, and hope.
> 
> [“Make my messes matter;](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FqFkwbKBOIQ)   
>  [Make this chaos count.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FqFkwbKBOIQ)   
>  [Let every little fracture in me](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FqFkwbKBOIQ)   
>  [shatter out loud.”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FqFkwbKBOIQ)

Once they return to Jericho, crates of biocomponents in tow, the atmosphere changes drastically from the defeat and desperation Markus had witnessed mere hours beforehand. Androids come out of the shadows to peer at them all cautiously, like this stroke of luck is too good to be true.

“We have enough blue blood for everyone!” North crows, head held high. Her victory cry echoes golden in the dark and cavernous space. A ripple of amazement travels through the crowd.

“It was Markus who led us to it,” says a voice behind him.

He turns to see Simon, who’s watching him out of blue eyes bright and alight with… what? Amazement, weathered by wariness? But then the PL600 smiles ever so slightly, eyes crinkling at the corners, and Markus’s thirium pump feels tight in his chest. He thinks that he’d like to see that smile more often.

(The observation flusters him. Pointedly, he chooses to ignore it.)

“I wouldn't have managed it alone,” Markus replies. At the sound of his voice, the crowd goes suddenly quiet. They're waiting, he realizes, for him to speak. 

He’s standing at the center of a vast pool, and he will be the one to create the first ripple.

“When I first arrived,” he begins, voice quiet yet loud all at once, “I didn’t know what to think. The freedom I see here is not the freedom I expected; it’s cold, and dark, and lonely. The only thing we are free to do is to die. But we deserve  _ more  _ than that.” He stops, takes a moment to scan the faces turned his way, the LEDs flickering yellows as his words cut through the air.

“I have suffered,” Markus tells them. Unbidden, his hands clench into fists at his sides. In his mind’s eye, he sees lightning fork across a dark sky. “And though I know my experiences can’t hold a candle to some of your own,  _ any  _ of our people’s pain should not be tolerated.”

There's a murmur of agreement, a wave of movement as people nod, jaws set in determination. 

“We don't have to stand by and let this happen to us!” Markus shouts. His voice reaches the rafters, and a few androids echo back the call. A thrum fills the air, red and pulsing with nervous energy. Red as human lifeblood. 

Markus opens his mouth to continue-- and pauses. Fire and brimstone is on the tip of his tongue. He can taste the smoke of it, the burn in his throat, but the words won't come.

_ Who am I to speak for everyone?  _ he thinks. He'd said it himself only a few moments ago: others have suffered far more. Markus’s life until the junkyard had been easy in comparison, almost laughably.

A gilded cage is still a cage, and yet… and yet.

If he's to have a voice in this rising action, he should first, at the very least, prove he's worthy to be heard. So he chokes down his anger before it consumes him and offers what he hopes is a reassuring smile. “Our new lives begin now,” he says, before stepping backwards into the crowd.

Luckily, Jericho’s leaders are sharp enough to spot an opening when they see one. Josh is quick to take Markus’s place. “Those of you who need the same biocomponents, gather together,” he instructs. “Those of you who don't have major repairs, come help.”

The room quickly turns into a seething mass of bodies as everyone shuffles around to find their place. Some androids need help to move, but with the hands of countless others supporting them, they manage. Markus makes himself useful wherever he can. He was made to assist the weak and infirm, and so his hands are deft and his bedside manner impeccable. 

Even so, he still feels a bit out of his element. He supposes that makes sense; he’s used to quiet mornings spent helping Carl dress and take his medication, not to all this… chaos. 

If he’s being honest, he didn’t even  _ realize _ there were this many androids in Jericho. Near-constant noise and movement surrounds him, frantic shuffling and reaching as the promise of thirim and replacement parts makes people restless. It becomes a chore just to wade through them all. His attention is torn in a hundred directions at once; he’s barely finished caring for one person before another takes their place.

Finally, the cries for assistance begin to burst behind Markus’s eyelids like firecrackers, so disarming that he practically trips over someone in his haste to help. It’s then that he decides that he might need a quick break. He’s no use to anyone if he’s doing more harm than good. 

“Markus, over here!”

Scanning the crowd, most of whom are now (thankfully) seated, he spots Simon looking at him expectantly. Markus makes his way to where the blond is kneeling underneath the overhang of the upper deck.

“Sit,” he says. “All I need you to do is hold him down.”

A child lies on the floor, one of the YK500 androids Markus had seen being advertised on Cyberlife billboards. This boy, though, he remembers in particular; Josh had been watching over him yesterday before their trip to the warehouse. His eyes are still as glassy as marbles and stare unblinkingly at the ceiling.

“He’s in deep stasis,” Simon explains as Markus crouches down across from him. “This was the only way to prevent him from shutting down.”

“What happened to him?”

A muscles jumps in the PL600’s jaw. “Faulty pump regulator. The damage had already been done when we found him.” Then he adds, voice faint, “It must have been the frost.”

It seems a sore subject for him, so Markus doesn’t press it. Instead he focuses on the way Simon’s fingers, even with their slight shake, easily unbutton the child’s shirt to expose his small, pale body. A gentle press against his chest, right above where a human’s diaphragm would be, reveals a compartment. In the center is a circular groove; the gaps in the plating there shine an angry, inflamed red.

“YK500s aren’t very widespread yet,” Simon says, “but they’re going to be soon. We’re lucky that the warehouse had a shipment of this size of regulator.” As he talks, he picks up the new bicomponent sitting on the floor beside him. It’s smaller than the standard size, and compared to the one currently inside the boy, it looks… healthier, somehow. Android parts aren’t organic, but they do mimic human innards. The regulator pulses weakly in Simon’s cradling grasp, like it’s searching for a body to fill, and Markus can hear its quiet beat like the heart of a fledgling.

He and Simon both look up from the bicomponent at the same time, and their eyes meet. “This is going to jumpstart his system,” the other android explains. “You’ll need to restrain him.”

Markus nods and does as he’s told. His fingers nearly fit all the way around the boy’s biceps, even with the added padding of his clothes. Once they’ve assumed their positions, Simon takes a slow breath and reaches forward to fit his nails under the groove of the chest port.

The dying regulator slides out of place. Markus can feel the body under his hands go limp, but before he has time to even register the  _ horror  _ of that--

(Before he can remember how it felt to rip that same piece out of a dying android in the cold and the rain as the sky split with thunder above him--)

Simon is pressing the new piece into the slot. It fits perfectly with a quiet _hiss,_ and there’s a momentary flare of light as it whirrs to life, and the YK500 gasps. Though he’d been prepared, Markus still starts in surprise as the tiny body fights against his hold with far more strength than a child ought to have. 

“What…?” The word lilts up at the end, confusion bordering on fear. Wide eyes, large and brown and watery with tears, meet Markus’s own.

“Hush,” Simon tells him, “We’ve got you,” and the tenderness that has crept into his voice makes Markus  _ ache.  _ He’d certainly never thought of Simon as cold or distant-- despite the way his eyes shine like polar stars in the darkness-- but this warmth is new. This is the warmth of someone who has cared for small and broken things before, and who feels deeply for them.

_ Empathy,  _ his mind supplies. One of the most human emotions he’s yet to witness. The sound of it coming from Simon is ultraviolet; it’s an undercurrent he cannot see, and yet he can sense it just  _ there,  _ under the surface of his skin, soothing. It’s…  _ incredible. _

Markus breathes in, lets it linger in his lungs for a moment before exhaling. Beneath him, the YK500 does the same. Now that the boy is more aware of his surroundings, he’s stopped straining in Markus’s grasp, and instead looks up at them with realization dawning on his face.

“Can you hear and see alright?” Simon is asking quietly. His hands are outstretched like he’s coaxing a skittish animal out of hiding. “Any error messages?”

“No errors.” The YK500 blinks owlishly, trying to adjust to his surroundings. “I’m… awake,” he says. It sounds more like he means,  _ I’m alive.  _

“You are. We found the part you needed.”

Sitting up and placing a small palm against his chest-- against his heart-- the child smiles. “It feels  _ right  _ again.”

Simon smiles back, bright and wide and stunning like Markus has never seen. “That’s fantastic, Isaac,” he says. He rests a hand at the small of the boy’s back, helping him as he moves to stand on shaky fawn legs. Markus feels a smile form on his own face at that eagerness.

True to his name, when Isaac takes his first steps, he laughs like the gentle brush of windchimes. “ _ Simon! _ ” he exclaims, and promptly whirls around to wrap his arms around the blond android’s neck. All of his meager body weight is thrown into the embrace; it’s just enough to set Simon back on his heels. 

“I’m glad you managed to fix me,” Isaac says earnestly. 

The PL600 closes his eyes, still smiling, and briefly presses his face into the curve of the boy’s shoulder. “So am I.”

When they pull apart, Isaac turns to Markus with a quizzical look. One of his hands remains fisted in Simon’s jacket.

“This is Markus,” Simon says. “He’s just arrived here.”

The little android stays silent for a moment, brows furrowed in concentration. He looks like he’s trying to figure out just how he feels about this new addition to Jericho. That lack of surety makes him seem even more like a human child-- which, Markus supposes, is the point. “Hello, Markus,” he says at length.

“Hello.” He’s unused to children, isn’t sure how to act around them, so the word comes out halting and likely just as unsure as Isaac’s. 

He feels… awkward. It’s certainly a first.

Simon rests a hand over the one gripping his coat and gently pries it away. “Go help the others where you can, alright? Go find Josh.”

Isaac nods, gaze still focused on Markus until he finally turns and heads off into the crowd. They watch in silence as he goes. Then Simon sighs, sitting heavily on the metal floor of the ship. “Thank rA9,” he breathes, and there’s a shake to his words.

Markus takes a seat at his side. “I don’t know what we would’ve done if that shipment hadn’t had so many different components,” he says grimly. “Or if we hadn’t been able to steal anything at all.”

There’s a grudging noise of assent from Simon. After a moment, he tilts his head so that their eyes meet, regarding Markus silently. “You’re tired,” he comments.

Markus realizes, surprised, that the other android is right. Strange, that it had taken someone else noticing for him to really feel the weary ache settling over his body. Almost sheepishly, he admits, “I don’t think I’ve entered rest mode in over a week.” When he speaks, his voice yellows at the edges: worn parchment that's beginning to curl from age, or the rusted metal crusting Jericho’s hull. 

“You  _ should,”  _ insists Simon. His tone is firm, and the gentle curve of his lips turns downward as he frowns. Markus is taken aback; suddenly, he feels very much like a disobedient child. 

“I will,” he promises. “Once everyone is cared for.” 

Simon’s expression eases just a fraction. “And I’ll hold you to that.” With another short, unnecessary breath, like he’s steeling himself for what’s ahead, the PL600 moves to stand. 

Markus follows the movement until he has to crane his neck to maintain eye contact. “What about you?” he asks. 

To his surprise, Simon  _ laughs.  _ It’s a small thing, ending just as quickly as it began, but Markus feels like he’s seen something precious. The streak of a comet across the night sky. “I can manage,” Simon tells him. His blue eyes are still sparkling with gentle amusement. “I’m used to caring for multiple children all at once. At least here no one tries to run away from me.”

An image of Simon surrounded by a hoard of screaming, crying toddlers fills Markus’s mind, and he can’t help but smile. “You have more of a talent for this than I do.”

“I wouldn’t say you’re  _ without  _ talent,” replies the PL600. There’s a tinge of blue to his face because of the praise, though, just dark enough to be seen in the lowlight. “But thank you.”

“Simon!” 

North’s head of fiery hair is visible even from across the room, where she’s kneeling next to another damaged android. “I need you for this!” she calls.

The two of them exchange a quick glance. “ _ You _ can’t keep going forever, either,” Markus warns.

“I can rest later.”

Fortunately, Markus’s senses have cleared enough that, when he too pushes himself to his feet, he doesn’t feel quite as drained anymore. “I’ll hold you to that,” he echoes, and is thrilled when Simon graces him with another small smile.


	4. Mercury

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> IV. MERCURY  
> Expression, communication, and intuition. 
> 
> [“Yet I know, if I stepped aside,](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4hO30LOpHPY)  
> [released the controls, you would open my eyes;](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4hO30LOpHPY)  
> [that somehow, all of this mess](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4hO30LOpHPY)  
> [is just an attempt to know the worth of my life.”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4hO30LOpHPY)

Winter descends on Detroit a few weeks later. Simon feels it coming in the way his bones begin to ache near constantly, in the needling sensation that prickles at his fingertips, and isn't surprised when he comes out of stasis one morning to see snow falling outside Jericho’s portholes. It falls through the gaps in the ceiling, too; by the time he makes it to the ship’s center, his hair and clothes are dusted in a fine layer of the stuff.

Plenty of androids are already (or still) awake and moving about the ship, North included. She’s perched herself on the wide railing that leads to the upper deck, back pressed against one of the support beams. It’s likely she didn't “sleep” at all; it makes her vulnerable, a state that Simon knows she despises. It's not hard to understand why.

“This one’s going to be bitter,” he says by way of greeting.

North’s face twists into a grimace. “Don’t tell me that. We already have enough to worry about as it is.”

“Well it's best that we prepare for everything then, isn't it?”

The WR400 shrugs and remains silent. Normally Simon would be frustrated by her reticence, but he can't bring himself to start an argument this early. He’s not exactly confrontational by nature.

That doesn't mean, though, that he won't make suggestions where he thinks they're needed. “We should try another supply run before the weather gets too bad,” he says. They’ve done a few since that first night in November, but as Jericho’s numbers continue to grow, more biocomponents are always in high demand.

“Agreed.” Josh approaches them from across the room to stand at Simon’s right. His LED is already cycling yellow in thought as he crosses his arms, eyebrows knit together. “Cyberlife must have noticed the missing supplies by now, though.”

“Their security will be upped for sure,” North says. “We won't be able to go in unarmed this time.”

“ _Or_ we could just find a different warehouse altogether. It's safer that way, and there won't be the risk of casualties.”

“There's going to be that risk regardless, Josh. You think they won't spread the word to all their warehouses, to prevent something like this from happening again? The only way we’ll be able to surprise them is if we use force this time.”

The conversation begins its slow descent into the very argument Simon had been trying to avoid, and he lets out a slow breath through his nose. Tensions are running high because of the threat of colder weather-- one of the few real threats to an android, particularly the damaged residents of Jericho-- but even so. He wishes they could all remain more _diplomatic._

Markus’s arrival several weeks prior had certainly improved things, but there’s still much work to be done before any of them will have anything close to genuine ease and comfort. And speaking of the RK200…

“Hello, Markus,” Simon says, just loudly enough that it stops North and Josh’s quarrel.

Markus simply nods. His two-toned eyes slide over each of them in turn. “You’re both right,” he says.

The comment earns him a skeptical look from North. “Care to explain?”

“ _You're_ saying that upped security will make it too difficult to successfully take what we need, right?” North nods. “And _you_ are saying that we should switch locations to avoid that.” Josh makes a noise of assent. “So,” Markus says, “we can take both of your advice and not steal from a warehouse at all.”

“Well we need to make _some_ kind of attempt soon,” replies Josh. “Some people are barely functioning as it is, and their parts won't hold up in the cold.”

“You have a different location in mind?” Simon pipes in.

Another nod from Markus. “It may still be risky,” he admits, “but it’ll help us make do until we can try for another warehouse.” He takes a short breath, like he’s steeling himself for his next words. His eyes flutter shut, just for a fraction of a second.

(But still not quick enough for Simon to miss the fear he sees in their depths.)

 

They begin the long trek to the android junkyard just as the sun sets over the city skyline. Once Markus had explained the plan, both Josh and North had agreed to go-- as had Simon, of course. The thought of scavenging parts from the dead is unsavory at best and horrifying at worst, but if they let this opportunity pass them by… he has a feeling that the bodies littering Jericho’s halls will only increase in number. So, in truth, doesn't that make this the lesser of two evils?

_It certainly doesn't feel any lesser,_ Simon thinks. Especially not from where he's crouched now, the junkyard’s curved walls rising around him, his arms elbow-deep in a pile of discarded limbs.

Upon arriving, all of them had split up to cover more ground. Markus and Josh both went deeper into the junkyard’s winding makeshift paths and had disappeared from sight. Simon and North had opted to remain closer to the entrance, where more recent truckloads had been dumped.

Simon glances up from the remains he’s sifting through. A few feet away is North, inspecting what looks like an auditory module, checking it for damage. Finding none, she places it carefully in the backpack slung over her shoulder. When she looks up and catches Simon’s eye, she beckons him over with a tilt of her chin.

“You were looking for a temperature regulator, right?” she asks in a hushed whisper.

If Simon is being honest, he’s surprised she even remembered his malfunction. They spend so much time treating each other with barely concealed exasperation that he’d forgotten she could be anything less than cold and angry.

“I am,” he replies. “Did you find one?”

“No, but I think Markus did. He mentioned something as he walked past.” North jerks a thumb over her shoulder, towards a path that leads further into the junkyard.

“Right.” He turns away before their stilted conversation can continue any further. This place seems to suck all the life out of everything; even their words feel hollow as they leave their mouths, conversations laden with unspoken horror at their surroundings. It sets Simon’s teeth on edge in a way he hadn't thought possible for his kind.

It takes him a minute or two to find Markus among the debris. He’s worked his way towards one of the junkyard’s sloping edges, where the discarded androids form a steep incline of metal and tubing and frayed wires. As he approaches, Markus is busy inspecting the rain-weathered chassis of an AX400 model. Simon doesn't miss the way broad shoulders tense at the sound of his footsteps. He can't bring himself to break the silence as he watches careful fingers ghost over the dead girl’s exposed wiring. Markus’s jaw is held tight in quiet anger, but there’s a sort of reverence in his expression, too.

“I remember her,” he says quietly.

Simon frowns, confused. This AX400 specifically? But that would mean…

Before he can pose a question, Markus is continuing. He still won’t meet Simon’s eyes. “This is where I came from,” he says. “I nearly died here.”

Dread settles over Simon as he takes in the words. Neither of them have talked very much about their pasts; the only hint that Markus had given to old wounds had been his speech after their first supplies run. _I have suffered,_  he’d said then. But he’d also insisted that his pain was far less severe than that of others.

Looking around at this pit of broken bodies and flayed limbs, blank faces staring at them through dead fish eyes, Simon can’t imagine how that could be true.

It hardly seems like the time, though, to address such delicate issues. Especially with the way Markus had withdrawn into himself as soon as he’d stepped foot in the android graveyard. He seems an entirely different man from the one who’d delivered that rousing speech to Jericho, or who’d smiled at Simon and complimented his talent for healing.

It hardly seems like the time, and so all Simon says is, “I’m sorry.” Fleetingly, he rests a hand on Markus’s shoulder. At first the other android tenses at the contact, but then he relaxes. Ever so slightly, he leans back into Simon’s touch.

Markus inclines his head just enough for one of his eyes to be visible, looking at Simon for the first time since he approached. “Have you found much?” he asks at length.

Simon makes a “so-so” motion with his hand. “As long as we do another actual run soon, this should be enough to help those who need it.” He sighs, casting another glance at their surroundings. “Sadly enough, some of our own have parts that are more damaged than these here.”

Markus nods, expression sobering even further. “We need all the help we can get,” he agrees.

With that, the two of them exchange a final glance before separating. Simon moves on, following a path that branches off towards the junkyard’s perimeter. Based on the mostly undisturbed clutter of biocomponents, no one had made it to this area yet. He settles on a pile at random and starts digging through it all.

As he works, his mind never strays from the thought of Markus here, lying among the dead. Simon isn’t sure what the other android could’ve done to be thrown away. He’s never seen an RK200 model before, which means Markus is certainly a prototype. That makes him more valuable than a simple housekeeping model like the PL600. Like _Simon._

_Markus smiling at him, eyes sparkling with mirth. You have a talent for this, he says._

Setting yet another damaged piece aside with a huff, Simon sits back on his heels. A comment like that shouldn’t _stick_ with him so. Markus hadn’t meant anything by it. _Simon_ is the one blowing things out of proportion, treating something so small like it’s profound and precious. He knows that PL600s had been designed to respond favorably to praise, but this… this feels different.

(And if he thinks far too often about the way Markus had _looked_ at him in that moment, like Simon was someone _important,_ well. No one needs to know.)

Once he finishes combing through the parts in his line of sight, he stands and moves to continue his search. His backpack is nearly full of biocomponents by now; they’ve had more success with this trip than he’d anticipated. Maybe after one more quick inspection, he’ll return to the entrance where they’d all agreed to meet. Then he can ask Markus about the temperature regulator, as well.

Caught up in his thoughts as he is, Simon doesn’t hear the quiet sound of gravel underfoot. Not until he rounds a corner and finds himself face-to-face with a group of four people-- four _humans._

“Oh, shit,” one of them says. He’s close enough that Simon can see how his eyes are dilated and bloodshot, made more obvious by the way they’ve widened in shock. His grip shifts restlessly on the strap of his bag and reveals fingers crusted with half-dried blue blood.

_Red ice_ , thinks Simon. His own shock begins to thaw and give way to fear, because he _knows_ what red ice does to people. He knows it makes them violent and unpredictable and sends them into an addictive spiral unlike any other.

He also knows that red ice’s second most vital component is thirium.

_“Shit,”_ echoes someone else. This time it’s said in awe and not surprise, like he can’t believe their stroke of luck. “I _recognize_ him.”

Any hope of passing as another human is suddenly and violently dashed. PL600s are a widespread model, owned by hundreds of Detroit citizens; he should’ve known that simply covering his LED wouldn’t always work as a disguise.

Without a second thought, Simon turns on his heel and breaks into a run.

He doesn’t get very far. His thoughts scatter and vision blooms white as something strikes him across the back of the head, sending him careening forward onto his hands and knees. _Potential damage to gyroscope,_ his HUD screams at him. _Seek assistance._ The irony of that makes Simon want to laugh, but he’s distracted as a hand fists in the back of his shirt and pulls him upright.

“This is _perfect!_ We can use this.” The hand shakes him firmly once, a clear threat to remain silent. Another comes up to push away his knit hat, revealing his LED that flickers bright red in the cold night air.

“Think it’s here with someone, though?”

“Nah, that makes no sense. These things have to report illegal activities, right? No way someone could use it for this.” Simon’s heart stutter-stops in his chest, and he tries to wrestle out of the human’s grip. He’s rewarded with a quiet curse and a cuff to the head for his efforts. “Stay _still.”_

“I dunno, guys, I don’t think we should mess with it. You never know.”

“What the fuck’s _your_ problem?” snarls the man restraining him. “Cold feet?”

“No I just--”

“God, all of you, shut up,” says another voice. “Listen, just shut it down and we’ll carry it with us. Get it over with.”

_Shut him down._ Fear claws at Simon’s insides, crawling its way up his throat, and forces its way out of his mouth in the form of a single word. _“Markus!”_

The grip on him relaxes in surprise, and it’s all the opening he needs. He tosses his head backwards, catching the man behind him under the chin. There’s the sound of clacking teeth, and a muttered snarl of, “Jesus _Christ,”_ and the hands let him go in favor of cradling what Simon hopes is a broken nose. He glances over his shoulder to see one human tending to his friend, while the others turn to Simon in shock and fear and no small amount of anger.

Once again, his only option is to run.

_“Hey!”_

Every single one of them freezes, Simon included. He’d recognize that voice anywhere.

In front of him stands Markus, shoulders thrown back and head held high, mismatched eyes so bright against his shadowed face that they seem to burn in their sockets. One of the floodlights above them casts a gentle glow over his form. Simon can see the way his fists are clenched and trembling in barely contained anger. “What the fuck are you doing?” he asks.

There are a few beats of nervous, tense silence as the humans seem to process Markus’s sudden appearance. As they do so, the RK200 moves to stand at Simon’s side, one warm palm coming up to rest between his shoulder blades.

“Uh…” One man steps forward. “Sorry about that. We didn’t realize someone else was here.” Trying and failing to feign nonchalance, he offers up a shamefaced smile and gestures to Simon. He says, “That’s yours, is it?”

The entire length of Markus’s body stiffens as he registers the question and its implications. Simon, too, is awestruck, because of _course._ Of course these men would think Markus is human, what with his lack of LED and the perfect imperfection of his odd-eyed stare. Androids aren’t made to be unique in that way-- to have _flaws._

When Markus doesn’t respond to the question, the man’s smile becomes even shakier, crippled by his nerves. He raises his hands in a gesture of surrender. “Look, uh, we’ll just go, yeah? We didn’t mean to damage your shit, we thought it was--”

He doesn’t even get the rest of his sentence out before Markus is striding forward, long legs carrying him easily over the uneven ground, and his arm whips out to catch the man across the side of the face with a _crack._ Soundlessly, he crumples to the ground at Markus’s feet. There’s a chorus of gasps and hissed curses-- including from Simon-- mixed in with the sound of frantic footsteps as the others rush to his aid.

“Jesus, what the _fuck?”_ It’s the man who’d attacked Simon, crowbar in hand and blood caking his face. He takes a threatening step towards Markus. The PL600 can see the murderous look in those red-rimmed eyes, and fear threatens to choke him again as he registers the danger of this situation.

Markus, however, seems unperturbed. At the very least, he’s composed enough to grab hold of the man’s wrist, stopping the descent of the crowbar, while his other hand comes up to fist in the front of the man’s jacket.

“Do _not,”_ he hisses, shaking the man like a disobedient dog, “Do not _ever_ treat an android this way again. Do you understand?” Simon has never seen someone touch a nerve in Markus so utterly and completely that he hadn’t been able to hold his tongue. If _this_ level of barbarism is what it takes to force his hand, then his self-discipline is beyond astounding.

No one else even moves a muscle; both of the uninjured men are busy supporting their friend between them as his head lolls against his shoulder, still mostly senseless.

“Fuck, I--” The crowbar drops to the ground as Markus _squeezes_ the delicate bones of the human’s wrist. “Fuck, _alright!”_ he relents. “What the fuck do _you_ care anyway? It’s not like you’re--”

“Like I’m _what?”_ Markus seethes. “Like I’m _one of them?”_

And then light blossoms between them as Markus’s skin retracts, revealing the bone-white of his fingers and knuckles and fists and forearms in a brilliant display of his otherness.

Fear is plain on the man’s face, cast into sharp relief by the glow. Simon can see his frantic breaths clouding the winter air. His struggling only increases as the silence stretches on, but he can’t break Markus’s inhuman grip-- not until the android suddenly releases him, sending him stumbling backwards.

“Let’s go,” he says as he backs away, one hand at his own throat, “c’mon, let’s _go!”_

None of the men need to be told twice. Practically dragging their half-conscious friend through the snow, they disappear back into the junkyard and out of sight.

As soon as they’re gone, the tension in Markus’s frame seems to lessen. His skin returns to his arms in a slow crawl; by the time Simon reaches his side, only the tips of his fingers are still suffused in a faint glow.

“Are you alright?” Simon asks.

“Am _I_ alright?” The other androids round on him, eyes blazing. “Simon, I should be asking _you_ that. You could’ve been killed.”

The anger and fear in his words makes Simon wince. Anxiety begins to build in his chest and he curls inwards; he feels like he’s being smothered by Markus’s gaze, like he can’t _breathe._ “I-I’m fine,” he insists, even as his HUD chooses that moment to remind him of _potential damage, seek assistance._ His legs do still feel a bit unsteady beneath him, a result of his balance working to right itself, but otherwise he’s nothing but shaken. Simon casts a glance over Markus’s shoulder in the direction the humans had gone. “Confronting them like that was risky,” he says, quietly.

“What would you have had me say, then?” Markus asks. “Should I have told him that you were _mine?”_

The question leaves his lips in a hiss, all sibilance and spitting anger, and Simon _knows._ He _knows_ what Markus means by it, that he loathes even the very idea of acting like someone else is his property, but the way his mouth curls around that final word leaves Simon’s ears ringing. The reply he’d been preparing dies in his throat, and all he can do is stare.

( _Mine, mine._ His head is an echo chamber that threatens to deafen him.)

Markus, however, seems to take the sudden silence as a sign that he’s caused offense. “I’m sorry. I just…” His eyes become downcast, brows furrowed so deeply that Simon wants to smooth them over with gentle, soothing strokes of his thumbs. “I _couldn’t,”_ Markus tells him.

He sounds like he’s begging. Like he doesn’t realize that Simon has already forgiven him.

“I understand,” Simon says. Because when he looks at Markus, and thinks about being in his shoes in such a situation, he can’t say that he would have done a single thing differently. “And Markus, I--” He attempts a half-formed smile, knowing it must appear as fragile as he feels. “Thank you.”

The RK200 looks up. His expression softens, just enough that Simon feels the weight on his own chest begin to lift. Up this close, he can see every individual freckle adorning Markus’s face. Yet another feature that makes him more anomalous than Simon could ever be.

“We, um.” Markus’s gaze slides to rest just past Simon’s head, almost as if… embarrassed? “We should find the others,” he says.

Simon nods, following along as Markus retraces their steps, trying to ignore the reverberant noise that still fills his head.

When they reach the entrance of the junkyard, both Josh and North are already present. Even from a distance, his friends look on edge; Simon can see the way Josh’s arms are crossed as if hugging himself, and how North’s foot is tapping a relentless pattern against the frozen ground.

“Where the fuck were you?” she asks as soon as they approach.

“There were… complications,” Markus replies.

“Humans,” Simon adds.

The other two androids tense even further. North’s face radiates nothing but cold fury as she asks, “What happened?”

Piecing together their halves of the story, Simon and Markus explain. As always, North and Josh have far differing opinions on what should’ve been done, and how _they_ would have responded differently.

“Provoking them probably wasn’t smart,” Josh says with a frown, echoing Simon’s own sentiments. “What if they remember your face and spread the word? You’re not exactly commonplace, Markus.”

“Oh, who _cares,”_ drawls North. “Markus, good for you. Those assholes deserved it, and hopefully they’ll think twice before coming out here again. Sending a message is more important than their hurt feelings and a little spilt blood.”

Through it all, Markus remains silent, thoughtful. At North’s last sentence, though, he looks up, eyes widened. By now, all of them recognize that look of inspiration on the RK200’s face.

“What are you thinking?” asks Simon.

“Nothing concrete yet. But maybe sending a message isn’t such a bad idea.”


	5. The Moon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> V. THE MOON  
> The unconscious, instinct, and emotional attachment.
> 
> [“x.”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WW9Dq2ciXDo)  
> 

Since the trip to the junkyard not even a week ago, Markus feels like they’ve been working nonstop. Any time not spent caring for Jericho’s people has been passed in their makeshift meeting room. Amazingly, Simon and Josh _and_ North had all agreed with Markus that it was time to expand their horizons beyond just surviving for another day. They need to make themselves known in a way that _forces_ humans to acknowledge them.

And to do that, as North had first suggested, they need to send a message.

They’d all decided that Stratford Tower would be their best option for reaching a wide audience. The trouble now comes with trying to organize the mission itself. They’ve spent what feels like every waking second planning out every potential scenario, leaving nothing to chance-- because slipping up could mean a lot worse than just failing.

Tomorrow at midday, their plan will be put into motion. Markus can only hope that everything works out as it should.

“Do you mind if I join you?”

Markus turns from where he’s seated at the edge of Jericho’s rooftop. Standing in the doorway is Simon, hands clasped in front of his chest, looking like he’s worried he’s interrupted something. In lieu of a verbal answer, Markus simply pats the space beside him and smiles.

“How are the other two doing?” he asks as Simon takes a seat beside him.

“Surprisingly… well.” The PL600’s words are reluctant, like saying them out loud is going to jinx this sudden and rare display of cooperation. “They disagree on certain points, but I think everyone acknowledges that the plan is sound overall. Now it’s just a matter of sorting out the last few kinks before tomorrow.”

“You _say_ they’re getting along,” Markus replies, “and yet here you are. _Far_ away from North and Josh.”

He gets a laugh in response, clear and bright in the nighttime air. “Okay, you caught me. I just needed to step away, is all.”

“I don’t blame you. It feels like we haven’t even left that room in days.”

Simon hums in assent, head tilted back so he can scan the darkened sky. The silence that settles between them is comfortable and easy, as it often is when the two find themselves alone. Something about Simon’s presence has started to become a salve for Markus’s ever-present worry. Everything seems… clearer, gentler somehow. Markus finds himself seeing a bit of that ultraviolet hue whenever he listens to Simon speak, words soft but strong, and with all the cadence of an ocean tide yielding to the moon’s pull.

That very moon is full tonight, and seems closer than ever despite its distance. If Markus turns his head just so, he can catch a glimpse of its diffused light being reflected by blond hair and blue eyes.

“You know,” Markus says, “I’ve heard that some humans believe the planets and stars affect their everyday lives. Some say they can even change the entire course of someone’s destiny.”

Next to him, a quiet laugh seeps into the winter air. “It’s funny that you say that.”

“How so?”

As Simon turns, his eyes are bright as the scattered lights in the sky above. “On the night you arrived here, the constellation Perseus was visible.”

Markus has to fight not to blush as embarrassment washes over him at Simon’s words. “I’m hardly a hero. And besides…” He smiles, trying to combat the sudden fluttering in his chest that’s only made worse by the way Simon continues to _look_ at him. “If I had to choose a constellation, I’d be Pictor.”

“The painter?” Finally Simon breaks eye contact to look back up, scanning the stars for the constellation in question. It’s small, understated, and easily lost in the cluttered sky, even on a night as clear as this one. “You prefer to be in the background,” he says.

“Maybe,” Markus replies with a shrug. Everything has changed so much in the past month or so; he doesn’t exactly know _what_ he prefers anymore. He catches a glimpse of the most prominent star in Pictor’s vicinity: Alpha Carinae, or Canopus, the navigator. If only navigating his life, his purpose, was as simple as pointing out a pinprick of light and following its path.

“I did paint something once,” he says then. The admission feels more profound than it should; judging by the way he can sense Simon’s eyes on him once more, the PL600 feels the same way. Painting-- _creating_ \-- is a distinctly human talent, and something that has separated them from their makers since the moment they were brought into existence. To say that he’s done something so unique, so autonomous…

Now that he’s dredged up this part of his past, Markus feels that he ought to explain.

“My… owner,” he begins haltingly, tripping over the title, “he was a famed painter. He liked to encourage me to do the same. At first, I wasn’t capable of understanding why; I couldn’t see the _point._ Making something original was totally foreign to me, and had no practical use. I wasn't programmed to see things the way humans do.

“It took me a long time to move past simply copying the world around me. But once I did, it just… clicked. And things felt different.” Markus tilts his head, thinking back to that day in Carl’s studio, midday light making the room look gauzy. “That wasn’t when I deviated, but… it must have contributed to it.”

“Because for the first time, you saw how things _could_ be.”

Simon’s words resonate with something in him. They’re said quietly, almost too quiet to be meant for Markus, but they send a shiver down his spine. Maybe he and Simon have something in common that he hadn’t realized-- or maybe _all_ androids do. Maybe their kind understands what it means to be alive more than any human could. Because for a time, they had known what it was like to be dead.

Their conversation lapses for another brief moment, both of them looking out over the sprawling city spread out beneath their feet. Wind buffets at them, whistling through the cracks in Jericho’s hulking metal frame, its sound a cold and glacial blue in the darkness. They’re sitting close enough that Markus can feel Simon shiver at the drop in temperature.

Something clicks in the back of his mind. “Oh!” he says aloud. “Your damaged part! I never gave you the replacement.”

Simon, who had been watching him inquisitively after his sudden outburst, raises his eyebrows in understanding. “You did find one then?”

“I left it in my room. Come on, let me get it for you.”

His “room” isn’t much: just one of the abandoned and decrepit cabins on Jericho’s upper deck, something that might have housed one of the ship’s crew members. Markus doesn’t use it often. He enters standby mode more infrequently than most, and when he does, it still feels strange to lie down on the sagging cot and close his eyes in a facsimile of sleep. Still, it’s a useful place to go to think-- and, as of late, to store what few possessions he has.

“Here,” he says, rummaging through the backpack he’d used in the junkyard and pulling out the component. It’s deceptively small, considering its importance. An android with a completely broken temperature regulator can die quite easily from heat or cold, because they have no way of balancing their core’s warmth without it.

Simon takes the piece in his hands and nods in satisfaction. “It looks like it’s intact.” He turns it over, inspecting the little grooves that are meant to slot into place underneath an android’s skin. “Thank rA9,” he sighs. “I’ve been looking for one of these for so long.”

It’s hard for Markus to imagine what it must be like, experiencing temperature in an almost human way. He himself can feel the cold and the heat, as all androids can, though the sensation is dulled; a risk is only posed to him in extreme conditions. And here is Simon, living in the hull of a ship mere feet above freezing cold waters, hardly ever saying a thing about his discomfort. It’s… endearing, in a way, but Markus also finds himself frustrated by it.

“Now you can finally stop shivering,” he teases.

A small smile forms on Simon’s face, even as he blushes at the comment. “That obvious?”

“Considering very few of us feel the _need_ to shiver, yes.”

“Hm, that is true. But ah--” And here Simon’s blush only grows, reaching a sapphire hue, eyes suddenly darting away to focus on some shadowed corner of the room. “If it’s not too much to ask, can you help me replace it? I can’t reach the spot on my own.”

 _Oh._ Markus hadn’t thought of that. He knows where a part like this fits on an android, just as all of them intrinsically know how to fix their damaged components, but still. “Of course,” he says, and prays that his tone is casual enough for Simon not to notice the sudden tension between them. “Here, just… sit on the bed.”

Simon does so, setting the bicomponent gently on the mattress next to him. There’s a brief second where his pale fingers flutter at the hem of his shirt, curling and uncurling nervously, and Markus finds it hard to believe that the shake in them is caused only by the cold.

Then, as if deciding to get the matter over with, Simon pulls his shirt over his head in one smooth motion.

It is far harder to avoid staring than Markus had expected. Just like his face and hands, the rest of Simon’s body is pale and almost delicate, even more so in the silver moonlight filtering in through the bedroom window. There’s a thin layer of padding under his skin that’s meant to make him look softer and less threatening. Despite that, Markus still catches the way Simon’s muscles move as he turns until he’s being viewed in profile, exposing the curve of his spine.

Markus’s footsteps seem magnified, hitting the floor in time with the beat of his heart, as he moves across the room and settles on the edge of the bed behind Simon. He picks up the temperature regulator.

(He tries not to focus on the way he does it so _deliberately,_ like he’s trying to distract himself from the smooth expanse of Simon’s back. He tries not to focus on the way Simon seems to tremble with their proximity. He fails spectacularly.)

“Nineteen vertebrae down,” he mutters. It takes a great deal of effort to resist the urge to map out those very vertebrae with his fingers, to see the way such a touch would make Simon shake. Instead, Markus presses gently over the spot he’d indicated. A small sliver of the PL600’s skin melts away; in its place is a slot, which relinquishes the broken regulator with just a bit of additional pressure.

When he slides the new component into place, Simon _gasps._

“Oh,” he breathes. “That feels…”

“Better?” Markus asks. The word rolls thickly off his tongue, and there’s a gummy feeling in his throat that hadn’t been there mere moments ago.

“Yes. I’m… _warm.”_ Simon shifts, skin against sheets, body and voice both moving with a fluidity that makes Markus’s breath catch. The ultraviolet light flares brighter on the backs of his eyelids, leaving him momentarily blinded. He feels like he’s seeing something that he shouldn’t, ducks his head in an attempt to avert his eyes-- and is immediately drawn to the jut of hip bones he sees over the hem of Simon’s jeans. They’re sloped so _gently,_ far more gently than Markus’s own, and look almost feminine when combined with his tapered waist. He wonders why Simon was built this way, and if it had been done to torment Markus specifically.

“Th-That’s, um. Good.” Silently, Markus curses the stutter that splits his response into fragments. It sounds vulnerable, and Simon is far too perceptive not to catch on.

As if sensing his thoughts, Simon’s LED cycles an attentive yellow, yellow, and then flashes a brilliant red. He turns his head at that moment to catch Markus’s gaze with one piercing blue eye. It’s lidded, almost like he’s tired, or… or…

“Markus,” he says. Just that, at first. There’s an undercurrent in his voice like the choppy, steel-grey waves of an ocean storm. His lips part enticingly as he continues, “I’m not sure how tomorrow is going to go, but I--”

_Hey, are you guys ready to go over everything one more time?_

Josh’s voice comes in from across the group comm link and makes both of them flinch. All too quickly, the tension in the room dissipates; Simon is curling away from him and reaching for his shirt, and Markus moves to sit ramrod straight on the edge of the bed, gaze diverted once again. It feels like they’ve been interrupted, but… _why?_

 _Ready,_ Markus says. He’s thankful that his thoughts don’t waver the way his voice does.

 _Be there in a moment._ That’s Simon’s reply, and Markus turns to watch as the blond stands, now fully dressed, and moves hurriedly to the door. He pauses there, just for a moment, and turns to reveal a tenuous smile.

“I’ll meet you there,” he murmurs.

And just like that he is gone, leaving Markus with the lingering feeling that something has changed, and yet somehow remained infuriatingly the same.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Y'all know what comes next.............


	6. Pluto

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> VI. PLUTO  
> Transformation, upheaval, and power (or the lack thereof).
> 
> [“I’ve been worried all my life,](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pfb568CO-Uo)  
> [a nervous wreck most of the time;](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pfb568CO-Uo)  
> [I’ve always been afraid of heights,](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pfb568CO-Uo)  
> [of falling backwards, backwards.”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pfb568CO-Uo)

“You’re starting to make _me_ nervous, Josh.”

To Simon’s right, the PJ500 flashes a shaky smile. His foot stops tapping its frantic rhythm against the concrete. “Sorry. Force of habit.”

Simon doesn’t blame him, of course; even without all the fidgeting, he can feel his stress levels beginning to rise as time goes on. Any minute now and the doors to the service lift they’re in will open to the top floor of Stratford Tower, where Markus and North are waiting. He’s donned a custodian uniform, LED uncovered, while Josh is dressed in civilian clothes. The hacking tool they’ve procured is a heavy weight in his pocket.

He feels like he ought to say something to ease the tension. Even after planning every aspect of this operation down to the second, there’s always the possibility of something going awry; the last thing they need is additional stress. But as Josh’s leg slowly takes up its beat once more, Simon’s mind is uncomfortably blank.

“When we go back to Jericho,” Josh says after a moment, “remind me to tell the others how much I _hate_ high-stakes missions like this one.”

Simon allows himself a small smile at the almost exasperated tone to his companion’s voice. Quietly, gently, he asks, “Scared?”

The PJ500 looks at him askance. “Terrified.”

“Don’t let North hear you say that,” Simon says. He’s only half-joking.

There’s a quiet laugh in response to his warning. “She’ll never let it go,” Josh agrees, and Simon feels his heart lift just a fraction at the levity.

Markus and North arrive not a second too late, clearing their access to the floor and allowing them out. They’re both dressed in uniforms just like Simon’s, with hats pulled low over their eyes. Snow dusts their clothing from their ascent up the side of Stratford Tower.

Reaching into his pocket, Simon proffers the hacking tool. Markus takes it with a resolute nod. “Let’s do this.”

The guards in the front room hardly pose a problem; they’re ordered aside at gunpoint and knocked out with swift, precise blows to the back of the head. Simon catches the way North eyes their unconscious bodies with resentment in her eyes, but she follows Markus’s lead down the hallway without a word. Moments later, they’re clearing the broadcast room of human and android workers alike.

“Shit-- he’s getting away!”

“Markus, shoot him!”

Simon turns from where he’s standing at a console to see one of the humans sprinting down the hall. A few feet away is Markus, gun raised and pointed at the man’s retreating back.

 _“Markus!”_ North shouts again. “He’ll call for help!”

At the last second, Markus jerks his aim downwards and fires a single clean shot through one leg. There’s a cry of pain and the sound of a body hitting the floor, but Simon can see the man still struggling. A non-fatal shot.

“Thank rA9,” says Josh from across the room. He’s busy with the main console, palms pressed against its surface as he interfaces with the broadcast systems. “Alright, over here. Stand in front of the cameras.”

The RK200 gets in place, still pensively silent. By now, Simon knows him well enough to see the nervousness in how he moves: the tense line of his spine, the thousand-yard stare, the clenched hands. His skin looks washed out and pale under the bright studio lights.

 _His skin._ “Markus,” Simon says, “your face.”

Markus turns and gives him a look of sudden realization, followed by a brief gracious smile. Then his body is losing its pigment, revealing the plating underneath, and the image of Markus-- of their _leader--_ is broadcasted across all of Detroit.

Two-toned eyes opening and fixing his audience with an unwavering gaze, he says, “The time has come that we can no longer remain silent.”

And the city stops in its tracks.

As the speech goes on, Simon’s eyes remain trained on the dozens of security cameras in front of him. Most of them are empty; the building has already been evacuated in the wake of their infiltration, but the security staff remains. The expressions on the faces he sees through the screens are ones of shock and awe. A few seem angry, certainly, and maybe some are just too surprised to properly react, but… at the very least, they do have everyone’s attention. That makes all the difference.

Two minutes in, he spots the movement of a SWAT team coming up the elevator. The human Markus shot must have placed an emergency call from his cell phone. Simon informs the others via their comms link, and watches North move to lock the door, her expression nothing short of stormy.

 _We should’ve killed him,_ she says.

 _We didn’t_ need _to,_ Josh replies. _We’re almost done here._

Three minutes in, a _hiss_ permeates the air as a thermal lance begins slicing through metal.

Simon swallows, heart in his throat. _We have maybe thirty seconds._ Everyone tenses in anticipation at his words. Markus, who can hear their conversation in the back of his own mind, sends a wave of affirmation through the link.

Thirty seconds later, on the dot, the door blows open with a shower of sparks and the smell of burning metal, and all hell breaks loose.

“The roof!” North barks, gun raised, teeth bared in a snarl.

None of them need to be told twice. Josh ends the broadcast and moves to return fire, just as Markus ducks behind the console and grabs for their duffle bag full of parachutes. Simon, for his part, darts to his right and follows the perimeter of the room.

Preoccupied as he is with avoiding the bulk of the shootout, he doesn’t notice the officer that turns in his direction and raises their weapon. A spray of bullets pierces the air, followed by the sound of shattering glass, and Simon’s legs are _punched_ out from underneath him as a shot rips through his left thigh.

_“Simon!”_

Ears ringing and vision impaired by the way his HUD is _screaming_ at him, Simon turns his head with what feels like a monumental effort. North and Josh, he notes with relief, have already reached the door to the roof. Markus is frozen mid-stride with a look of pure horror on his face. When he moves to help, Simon shakes his head almost violently.

(He imagines Markus dying to save him and his whole body goes cold. He can’t let that happen. He _can’t.)_

“No!” Simon’s limbs curl underneath him as he tries desperately to crawl across the ground.  His thirium pump is beating at double, triple time, pulse fluttering in his throat. “No,” he says again, even as fear threatens to immobilize him with that word. “Markus, just go!”

The sentence is barely out of his mouth before he’s being lifted, nearly dragged across the room, and he stumbles the last few feet to the door. Markus’s hand never leaves his side.

They’re met with flurries of snow on Stratford Tower’s rooftop. The duffel bag is dropped on the ground between them, Josh already rooting through its contents, while North locks the door behind them. Simon takes several shaky steps before finally collapsing. Beside him crouches Markus, practically radiating nervous energy.

“Can you stand?” he asks.

Simon shifts, winces as his exposed wiring sparks with the effort. “I can’t move my legs.”

“Then one of us will carry you.”

“I’m too heavy, Markus.” Simon looks up and meets his friend’s eyes. They’re hard, determined, but that’s only a thin veneer. Beneath it, he can see that Markus is _terrified._ The sight pierces Simon far more deeply than any other fear he’s seen.

Words are on the tip of his tongue, moments from spilling out into the air between them. Something-- some _feeling--_ he’s wanted to voice for weeks, ever since he’d been caught under Markus’s gaze and picked apart, bared open, regarded as something _special._

The words never come. Instead, he says, “You have to save yourself.”

(And maybe that, in and of itself, is a confession.)

North’s voice rings out through the freezing air. “We need to make a decision.”

The three of them move to stand a short distance away, shoulders hunched and hands gesturing wildly. Some of their conversation is obscured by the wind, or by the incessant ringing in Simon’s head. Some of it, however, isn’t.

Between one gust and the next, he hears North say, “We need to kill him.”

It’s like being plunged headfirst into frigid waters. Simon doesn’t often _need_ to breathe, but as his systems kick into overdrive in anticipation of some unknown, unseen threat, he finds himself gasping. If he doesn’t, his systems are bound to overheat. He will shake apart, and the melted and mangled titanium that was once his bones will ooze out over the snow, and his misshapen carapace will be left to rust.

Betrayal is an emotion Simon has experienced before. He had thought he’d been freed of it by now.

While his world threatens to collapse around him, Markus approaches and casts a looming shadow over his hunched form. A few steps back, North and Josh are watching the exchange. Josh looks torn, expression caved like this decision hurts him more than it hurts Simon. North has set her face in a mask of apparent apathy, mouth a thin line; he can only hope that beneath it all, she is equally affected by their choice.

A hand extends, and he looks up to see… not the barrel of a gun, but its grip.

“I’m sorry, Simon,” Markus says.

Simon takes the pistol silently, eyes never leaving Markus’s. There’s something in their depths that makes him pause, like the RK200 is trying to communicate something to him without words. But then Markus is turning away with a resolute nod, and the door to the roof is beginning to shake on its hinges, and Simon watches his friends sprint to the edge of the building and throw themselves off, looking far more fearless than he feels.

“Stand back!” someone shouts.

There’s no time for him to dwell on anything now. He needs to _move._ Gritting his teeth, gun still clenched tightly in one hand, Simon forces himself to his feet. He turns the corner of the air vent just as the door blows open. Fortunately, the soldiers are immediately drawn to the discarded duffel bag and the mess of footprints heading in the direction of open air. It gives Simon enough time to hobble across the roof and spot a supply closet labeled with all sorts of mechanical jargon.

Inside, he barely has enough space to move, but he manages. Again his legs buckle beneath him and he falls to the floor, crowding himself between the wall and the machinery, gun poised. Thirium evaporates relatively quickly, but if any of the soldiers spot his blood trail sooner rather than later, finding him will be easy.

He has to be ready to make sacrifices.

If they catch him, they’ll be able to probe his memories. Everything he’s ever thought, everything he’s ever experienced, will be laid out before them like a massive web of knowledge. They’ll find Jericho, and all the androids there still recovering from abuse and oppression. They’ll find _Markus._

The only way to prevent data recall is a single shot through the frontal lobe.

Simon has seen others of his kind do this. Every other part of an android is replaceable-- even their pump regulator, even their heart, so if one truly wants to die, they aim for the head. Their body can be repaired, certainly, but the personality is gone. _They_ are gone.

Though he doesn’t want to admit it, his chance of escaping is next to none. It would be far better for him to just make the choice now, to avoid all possibility of the humans using him to their advantage.

Lowering his gun, cradling it against his chest, Simon imagines nestling the barrel beneath his chin and pulling the trigger. _Will I feel anything?_ he wonders. _Will it hurt?_ His lungs squeeze tighter, tighter, as the image fills his mind.

(Will it be like slipping away? Will it be like a convulsion through his body, veins rupturing under the pressure of his blood? Will he look like that body he watched fall to the floor, red replaced with blue, eyes fish belly white instead of bloodshot?)

Simon stops his thought process before it threatens to devolve further. He focuses on the cold metal beneath him, on the way his breath clouds in the air from his overheated systems, on the sound of more footsteps and shouting outside as the scene is swarmed by humans. He _waits._

It’s some time before the noise begins to die down. There’s still the faint sound of conversation beneath all the wind buffeting his hiding place, but most of the commotion has faded away. An investigation must be in progress to see how their infiltration had been so successful. Simon can’t help but allow the ghost of a smile to cross his face; humans are always quick to underestimate others.

His thirium trail must be dissipating by now, he realizes. That, or the snow is covering it up. Either option provides a significant advantage on his part, enough that he may be able to slip away when the SWAT team and police begin to clear.

And then he hears footsteps, calm and confident, heading directly towards him.

Humans, Simon has come to learn, have unique footfalls. No two are the same, at least not to his hyper-perceptive audio processors. That, in every way, broadcasts just how flawed and fallible humans are; how even in the smallest of details, they are entirely imitable.

This is not the gait of a human. It is precise, controlled, measured so as to be near silent. A predator, and most certainly an android. Simon’s throat threatens to close up as he makes the connection.

_The deviant hunter._

Seconds later, the door swings open to reveal a man, brow furrowed as though curious, face and eyes painfully _warm._ It looks so… human. But then its gaze falls on Simon. Its expression hardens, and Simon would be no more scared if the android had bared a mouth full of too-sharp teeth.

Simon raises his gun and fires. One shot misses-- and how strange _that_ is, for a machine meant to be one-hundred percent accurate-- and the second hits the deviant hunter in the shoulder. Simon watches as thirium blooms cobalt on the Cyberlife-issued jacket. Instead of attacking, though, the RK800 turns on its heel and runs. _It’s unarmed,_ Simon realizes. If it hadn’t been, he’d surely be dead.

He takes a few more shots at its retreating back as he pulls himself up and out of the closet, dragging his damaged leg behind him. The police heard the gunshots and have all rounded on his location. They weave out from behind the air vents and support beams and take aim at where he’s crouched behind cover.

 _Time’s up,_ Simon thinks. He moves to position the pistol beneath his chin.

As it so often does, his deviancy betrays him.

He cannot pull the trigger. He tries, and tries again, but his joints lock before he can apply pressure and _fear_ courses through him. If he doesn’t do this, he’ll be betraying Markus, and yet the very thought _of_ Markus is enough to stay his hand.

 _I’m sorry, Simon._ Markus’s last words to him. The last thing Simon will ever hear him say, and it is laced with sadness and regret and pity _because_ of Simon.

Cursing under his breath, vision blurring with tears, he stands up and fires off a round. There’s a blur of movement as the deviant hunter ducks out of cover and begins running towards him. Even when a shot catches it in the arm, it doesn’t slow.

Before it can reach Simon, though, the police return fire. Bullets rip through his shoulder, his side, catch him just under his ribs, and then--

His pump regulator.

The world around him falls silent and dark, and Simon doesn’t think very much at all for a very long time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Smash Bros. announcer voice* Connor joins the brawl!
> 
> Also remember how quick North was to suggest that they murder Simon? Simon, who is years her senior and is the de facto leader of Jericho and who seems to be in good standing with literally everyone, INCLUDING her, up until this point? Remember how no one has significant reactions to it beyond "but he's one of our own," taking away from any possible development of the dynamic between these characters who ought to be friends? Yeah. I remember. Fuck you, Monsieur Cage.
> 
> ANYWAY. Alright folks, home stretch. Here we go!


	7. Saturn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> VII. SATURN  
> Fears, challenges, and one’s limitations.
> 
> [“I’d give anything to hear](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVBcByPJS0I)  
> [you say it one more time:](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVBcByPJS0I)  
> [that the universe was made](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVBcByPJS0I)  
> [just to be seen by my eyes.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVBcByPJS0I)
> 
> [With shortness of breath, I’ll explain the infinite:](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVBcByPJS0I)  
> [how rare and beautiful it truly is that we exist.”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVBcByPJS0I)

When the revolution proper begins, Markus thinks of Simon before all else.

Maybe it’s the way he automatically looks over his shoulder when wrestling with a difficult decision, seeking advice from someone no longer at his side. Maybe it’s the way he feels when he sees other PL600s in the sea of freed androids, and his heart _jumps,_ and he thinks, just for a second, _could it be._  Of course it never is, and admitting that to himself makes the ache in his chest turn raw again every time.

The ache remains until one late night during search and rescue on the southern fringes of the city. He’s busy aiding another android, hidden behind a barricade made of crumbling concrete and rebar, blue blood up to his elbows. It’s hard to focus on much else beyond the dull beat of the HK400’s thirium pump.

“There you are, Markus.”

Despite his better-than-human reflexes, Markus still has to stop himself from flinching at Connor’s sudden and silent appearance. Briefly he’s reminded of the RK800’s original purpose: infiltration, reconnaissance. So unlike Markus himself, when a mere digit in their model numbers separates them. Fortunately he’s at least discarded his Cyberlife-issued jacket; its glowing band and android insignia would have made him an all too easy target.

Connor continues without waiting for a response to his greeting. “As we’re currently seeking others to repair or transport to somewhere safe, and we are near to the relevant location…” A hesitation. Unusual, Markus thinks at first-- but then the RK800 finishes his sentence. “I feel that I should inform you,” he says, “that I know of the PL600’s location.”

 _The PL600._ There is no need to ask _which one,_ because Connor is too attentive to think that just any of the caretaker models would draw a reaction from Markus. It can only be one.

Markus’s voice fights its way through the sudden tightness in his throat.“Where?”

“The Detroit Police Department. He’s--” Again Connor stops. When the android leader glances up at him, he almost looks… guilty? His handsome face is contorted in a frown, and his eyes do not meet Markus’s. Connor says, “He’s being held as evidence.”

Anger flashes through Markus, hot and bright, before he can even think to stop it. An image in his mind’s eye reminds him of that day in Stratford Tower. Of turning his back on Simon, sitting helplessly on the snow-covered roof, gun in one limp hand. _You have to save yourself,_ he’d said. The last words he’d spoken to Markus. They are still seared into his memory like a brand.

He steadies his hands then, forces himself to focus on tying off yet another exposed vein in the HK400. Markus is selfish, he knows. His mind is already elsewhere, far from this android and their delicate condition, entire train of thought derailed. But who is he if he cannot give his people the attention they deserve? If he cannot treat them all equally?

Markus clenches his jaw, tries to swallow and finds it painful. _All too human,_  he thinks to himself, admonishingly, bitterly. How strange that they have become so like the creatures that forged them, and who now seek to do the exact opposite.

Onces he finishes, he calls another android over-- a medical model, judging by the uniform they still wear-- and explains the HK400’s condition. Then he turns back to Connor.

The RK800 rests a hand on Markus’s shoulder for just a moment; it’s an awkward, stiff gesture coming from him, but the sentiment means everything. “Follow me.”

As they move down the street, northwards towards the city’s center, the spray of gunfire surrounds them. Several times they’re forced to duck into cover as armored SWAT teams run past. All the while Connor maintains a cool facade, though the line of his jaw is tense and his brow furrowed. Markus finds that he appreciates that level-headedness. It helps to calm the storm raging inside his own head, the endless tide pool of emotion that now circles around a single phrase: _I know of the PL600’s location._

(Deep down, Markus knows that this is no guarantee. Connor is not careless with words; such vague ones had been chosen for a reason. He can’t dwell on what they might mean.)

The police station is all but abandoned when they arrive. Almost all of the DPD has taken to the streets in an attempt to control the crowds. Markus appreciates the brief respite from the commotion, but at the same time… in the silence, his thoughts become so _loud._ If he hadn’t carved out his LED long ago, it would be showing bright red by now.

They reach a flight of stairs that lead deep down into the building. The room they find seems deceptively empty, all stainless steel with nothing but a wide, rectangular console in the center. Connor steps up to it and its screen lights up, asking for clearance. He presses his palm to the keypad.

Before their eyes, the room changes. The back wall opens to reveal shelves, some of them piled high with files, and hooks, which are holding…

Markus’s hands ball themselves into fists at his sides. _Bodies._ They’re strung up like cuts of meat, or ravaged carrion for vultures. There aren’t as many as there could be, but even a few are too many. He recognizes another PL600 model, the first ever public case of deviancy from all those months ago. There’s an HK400 with burns littering its arms, its forehead collapsing inwards in a way that makes Markus want to gag.

And then, hanging furthest to the right, equally dead as all the rest, there is Simon.

Despair threatens to crash over him. It’s ice cold and black as the vastness of space, nothing at all like the gentle light of Simon’s voice that he misses so dearly. Seeing the man hanging here silently is a harsh reminder of just how much his absence has made Markus _ache._

Connor doesn’t stop him from rushing forward. Hands outstretched, he cradles the curve of Simon’s jaw in both hands. He doesn’t bother to hide the shake in his fingers. Though it has long since evaporated, Markus can still see the daub of thirium staining Simon’s lips. There’s a thick stain of it set into his stolen Stratford Tower uniform, too, crusting around the edges of the ripped fabric. A perfect circular hole right where a pump regulator would fit.

When he looks up, his gaze meets a pair of deadened eyes. The blue irises over black scleras hints at some optical malfunction, and lends a shocked look to Simon’s normally gentle face. Briefly Markus wonders what he might have seen last-- and dismisses the thought almost immediately, because it makes his lungs tighten and tighten until every breath burns.

A hand at his shoulder makes him start. “Here,” Connor says. He offers up an intact pump regulator.

When Markus slides the component neatly into place with a quiet _click,_ Simon jerks to life before them.

The silence is filled with rapid breathing and the sound of whirring mechanics as Simon’s head turns, birdlike, from side to side. “Who’s there?” he asks. His voice comes out garbled and thick with static, but the fear in it is all too clear, black as ink and all-encompassing.

“Simon,” Markus breathes. His hands hover just above pale skin, torn between wanting to touch and knowing that he shouldn’t. Not just yet; not when they are still so _fragile._ “Simon,” he repeats, and then, “It’s me. It’s Markus.”

That, it turns out, is the exactly wrong thing to say.

Simon’s whole body wrenches backwards, twisting against the hook that keeps him suspended against the wall. If his eyes had been wide before, they are impossibly so now, two flat disks wavering in their sockets. His lips have parted in shock, his eyebrows furrowed in a clear expression of pain. “No,” he spits out. “No, no, you’re not him!”

“I am, I promise you. Everything is going to b--”

“ _Stop!”_ Simon’s jaw clenches tight in anger, and the sight makes Markus fall silent _._ “You tricked me before. I won’t fall for it this time.”

Markus’s blood feels leaden in his veins. _Tricked?_ “Simon, I--”

“You tricked me and then you _left."_   The words, sharp and scared, burn an agonizing red across the backs of Markus’s eyelids. It’s like the eclipse of some dazzling, dying star. “You can’t be Markus,” Simon continues, voice now nearly unintelligible with static, “can’t be, can’t be, Markus wouldn’t--”

The sentence goes unfinished as the words seem to get stuck in Simon’s throat, and now he's _choking,_  and next to him Connor is saying, sharply, “His stress levels are rising, Markus--"

Before he can think about what he’s doing, Markus reaches out to grab hold of Simon’s hands. They're trembling beneath his grasp. Then, slowly, he allows his skin to pull away and white meets white as a connection is formed.

Simon’s mind, in the brief glimpse of it that Markus gets, is in _tatters._ It's a whirl of residual color and sound, with anxiety and fear skittering over it all like insects under his skin. He sees brief snatches of memories: their warehouse raid, the deck of Jericho, Stratford Tower. Even when there is only darkness where a visual feed should be, he hears Simon’s surroundings.

 _It's gonna be alright. Just give me the location to Jericho._ His own voice, but it sounds wrong. Too stiff, somehow, despite the perfectly mimicked inflection and tone.

In his half-dead, terrified state, the Simon of the past clearly doesn't notice. _Markus,_ he says, relief and so much _adoration_ in his voice. _Of course._

Markus has to take a breath to steady himself as he tears away from the stream of memories, and he fights to pipe _calm-_ _peace-safety_ through their link. He can feel fingers entwining with his own, seeking comfort.

Then their connection breaks. Markus blinks awake, disoriented at the sudden separation as he’s thrown back into the present. He opens his eyes just in time to see Simon reach out blindly with shaking hands. There's a gentle pressure as thumbs stroke across the swell of his cheekbones.

Simon breathes in, disbelieving, hardly daring to hope. “Markus,” he whispers. “You came for me.”

Something inside Markus’s chest _breaks._ All too easily, he falls apart.

“Of course I did,” he chokes out. “Simon, I--" His own hands come up to cradle the PL600’s face. Blond eyelashes flutter against his skin at the tender touch. “Simon, I will _never_ leave you again,” he says. He butchers half the words, voice thick with tears just as more spill down his face, but even so, Simon smiles. It’s small, and broken, and makes a sob catch on all the jagged edges Markus can feel buried in his chest-- where in a human, his heart might lie.

Fingers curl under the curve of his jaw, grounding him. Simon says again, “Markus,” but then he stops. Thirium bubbles up over the swell of his bottom lip, and he makes a noise like he’s _drowning._

“The bullet wounds,” Connor says, stiffening at Markus’s side, “They’ve created a breach in his main thirium line.”

Fear cuts Markus straight to the core. Simon running out of thirium isn’t completely damning, but if he goes without it for long enough, it could cause damage to his internal workings. Including those housed inside his brain.

“Simon,” he says then, cradling the PL600’s jaw to get him to focus, “Simon, we need to turn you off again.”

The response is immediate. “No!” Simon struggles against him, fear once more in his eyes, though no longer a fear of Markus.

(Just a fear of what he could _do._ And isn’t that just as heartbreaking?)

“Markus,” he’s continuing, “I _can’t._ I can’t do it again, I can’t go back to that, I can’t--” His words are cut off around another sickening cough.

“We have to. It’s only until we get you somewhere safe and can get you thirium.” Markus’s softens his gaze, even though he knows Simon can’t see it. “I promised I wouldn’t leave you, didn’t I?”

There’s a moment of quiet filled only by feeble breathing and the drip of blue blood. Then Simon says, “I trust you.”

(It sounds like he’d meant to say something different. Markus can’t bring himself to ask what.)

The PL600’s surrogate pump regulator throbs hot and fast against Markus’s hand. “Just hang on, Simon,” he says. Then he turns his wrist and pulls the component out, pocketing it, and Simon goes still in his arms once again.

With him and Connor working together, they’re able to get the PL600 down from the hook; he is a deadweight between them, and Markus tries not to think too hard about all the worst possible outcomes to this situation. He focuses on the task at hand. Connor will need to have his gun arm free in case they run into trouble, so that leaves him to carry Simon. Markus lifts him with only a little difficulty, with one hand under his knees and the other under his back. His chin rests perfectly on the crown of Simon’s head.

“His thirium levels are at eleven percent,” Connor notes.

“Enough to get him to our nearest stronghold?”

“If we move fast.”

Markus nods, jaw clenched so tightly that he feels something akin to an ache in his muscles. The two of them are silent as they climb the stairs from the evidence locker and return to the world above.

As they make their way through the streets, Connor once again in the lead, Markus thinks. He thinks about how much time has passed since Stratford Tower, and how much has happened in those few short months. He thinks of the civilians who have evacuated Detroit, who have left behind their homes and belongings, who are as terrified about the outcome of this revolution as the androids are. He thinks of his own people, some fleeing or hiding away like the humans, some throwing themselves into the fight. How many androids, Markus wonders, must be lying half-dead in some forgotten corner of the city, eternally in stasis, just like Simon.

Unlike Simon, not all of them will have a second chance.

Markus wishes he could have avoided this outcome. He sees the sounds of artillery burst orange in the air, bright as a pyre burning out of control, and pictures himself as the igniting spark to that blaze. He tastes the bitter tang of gunsmoke on the back of his tongue, searing his throat, and tries not to gag.

Not all of Detroit has become as chaotic as this-- but if they don’t find a way to end the fighting soon, the violence could very well spread until, eventually, it engulfs them all. And that, Markus thinks, could very well be their undoing.

Their nearest stronghold, as he’d called it, is hardly much of a stronghold at all. More like a strategically positioned factory near the waterfront, abandoned as most buildings on the city’s southern outskirts and full of androids seeking refuge from the fighting. It’s hardly more than a block from where Jericho had once sat silently in the port. Markus wonders just how long his people will have to rely on decrepit, broken things for shelter and comfort.

Just inside the door is North, tending to another WR400 model with a face other than her own. When she turns and sees him with Simon cradled against his chest, Connor now at his heels, some fleeting and vulnerable emotion crosses her face before it hardens once more.

“Markus…” she starts. Already he can hear the warning in her tone. The _what if he doesn’t make it._ The _what if it’s not worth it to try._

Markus has never faulted North before for valuing the good of the many over the good of the one. In a revolution, it’s an unfortunate reality. But with Simon resting fragile in his arms, ready to shake apart at any second, Markus all but sees red.

“Get out of my _way_ , North,” he hisses-- and she does. It just might be the quickest he’s ever seen her back down.

They take Simon to one of the less crowded side rooms in the factory. The floor has been covered in blankets and makeshift cots, more as a source of emotional and mental comfort than out of any physical need for warmth. Gently, Markus sets Simon down on a bed of the ragged fabric. Then, almost as an afterthought, he removes his own jacket and places that beneath Simon’s head, as if to cushion the fragile inner workings he knows are hidden inside.

Without looking up, he asks, “Thirium levels?”

“Five percent. He needs an immediate transfusion.”

Markus swears under his breath. “We need to close up the wounds first.” He stands, casting a brief glance at Connor and motioning for him to stay at Simon’s side.

Back in the main room, he seeks out North again, this time finding her tending to an AX400. When he asks for materials, she leans away from her patient just long enough to gesture to a pile of discarded scrap at the far side of the room. “That’s all we have,” she says. If not for her grim tone, Markus would have thought she was joking.

“Any blue blood?” he asks.

“One shipment. We just found it, but… it’s not much, and there are so many _people…_ ” A ragged sigh escapes her as she turns back to the AX400, shoulders held tight in frustration. “There probably isn’t much of it left,” she admits.

Being low on supplies is a situation that Markus is all too familiar with. Of course, that familiarity does nothing for the worry sitting heavy in his gut.

As he turns to leave, North calls out to him again. “Markus, I…” Her voice wavers, and there’s a lull to it that allows her normally masked emotion to seep in. “I hope you can save him,” she says.

Markus thinks back to that day on Stratford Tower. He thinks of North looking him in the eyes then, gaze cold as the blizzard surrounding them, and saying, _We have to kill him._ This moment, he realizes, is as close to an apology as he will ever receive. So he nods, still silent, and leaves her to the task at hand.

Connor is seated at Simon’s side when Markus returns with the necessary supplies. For the first time, there’s a defeated slope to his shoulders-- none of that military precision he tends to exude. Once he hears Markus’s footsteps, however, he’s quick to straighten up, casting an almost guilty glance over his shoulder. “Four percent,” he says, quiet like he hopes to soften the words’ blow.

There’s a crackling fire alight in the oil barrel at the room’s center, acting as a hearth of sorts. Markus readies the piece of rebar he’d found and holds it over the flame until its tip turns red-hot. Then, returning to Simon’s side, he passes the makeshift cauterizing tool to Connor. His fingers only hesitate for a moment at the hem of the PL600’s shirt, feeling intrusive somehow despite the dire situation, before he pulls it up to reveal pale skin.

Pale, apart from the bursts of thirium that bloom bright and sapphire from the gnarled wounds in Simon’s chassis. Markus winces at the sight, and-- in a surprising show of humanity-- hears Connor do the same next to him.

“These are most life-threatening,” the RK800 says, fingers brushing over two holes near the center of Simon’s chest. The bullets only just missed his heart. If they hadn’t, he’d have bled out in mere minutes, and they would have found a corpse in that evidence room instead.

Markus shudders and forces himself to focus. “Close them first,” he instructs, and Connor nods.

To this day, many of their people still seem uneasy when around Connor. Markus doesn’t blame them; the deviant hunter had been the single greatest threat to their cause for months, and had assisted in the capture and destruction of numerous free androids. The thought of him joining their ranks had seemed absurd at first.

But now, with the two of them kneeling side by side, fingers stained in thirium as they work to save Simon’s life, Markus can’t imagine where they would be _without_ Connor.

They mend the wounds to Simon’s torso, then the one to his thigh, all the while monitoring his still wavering thirium levels. Once they finish, Markus finds himself breathing just a little bit easier. Though there’s still much to be done, at least Simon is no longer losing blood. Now they can focus on replenishing his supply.

“We only have two bags,” Connor says. _It won’t be enough,_ he doesn’t say, but Markus can hear it in his voice.

“We’ll have to make do.”

All androids are capable of taking thirium orally, even when in standby mode. Taking one of the bags, Markus unscrews its cap but keeps his fingers pinched around its neck. His other hand slips under Simon’s head, fingers and thumb resting on either side of his jaw. With the slightest bit of pressure, the PL600’s lips part enough for Markus to pour the thirium in, and his throat flutters as he swallows it reflexively.

The first bag empties quickly, as does the second. “That’s all we have?” Markus asks, and when he looks up, there’s a frown still on Connor’s face.

“Yes. And it’s not enough.” The RK800’s eyes jump back and forth across Simon’s prone form, scanning him. “His thirium levels are at about twenty-five percent. Stable, but only because he’s in standby. A larger quantity is needed for him to come online and stay that way.”

Markus sits back on his heels, one hand still clutching their second empty bag of thirium. They do have the option of leaving things as they are until they come across more blue blood, but with the chaos outside, they have no way of telling when that could be. And without at least half the normal capacity, Simon won’t be able to mend the internal damage to his systems. He could overheat, or freeze, or…

And then inspiration strikes him.

“I have an idea,” Markus says, “but I don’t think you’ll like it.”

Impossibly, Connor’s frown deepens further. “Go on.”

Markus rolls his sleeves up to his elbows and proffers one bare forearm, wrist up. “Take some from me.”

As predicted, Connor’s LED spins a stuttering red at his temple, distress evident on his face. But then he surprises Markus, because the next words out of his mouth are, “We need something sharp.”

They procure another piece of rebar, and this time when they heat it, Connor snaps it in half against the edge of the oil barrel. It’s sharp enough that Markus can see its edge glinting in the evening light filtering through the windows. It’s sharp enough that Markus feels his skin split with only the barest amount of pressure. He manages to nick a hole in his malleable plastic casing and reach a vein underneath. Blood wells up around the cut, and his HUD warns him, _breach detected._

“Yeah, I know,” he mutters through gritted teeth. For good measure, he presses a little deeper. The artificial tendons under his skin flex against the makeshift blade, and the thirium leaks out of him in a steadier stream. Markus can almost see the way it pulses in time with his steady heartbeat.

Just like before, Simon is quick to take in the blue blood as it drips into his waiting mouth. There’s something distinctly vampiric about the whole setup that almost makes Markus smile. As things are, though, his nerves are far too shot for him to focus on much else beyond his own dwindling thirium levels.

His HUD reads _seventy-five percent capacity_ when Connor says, “That should be enough.”

Even as he tries to quiet the warnings still flashing before his eyes, all of Markus’s breath leaves him in a rush. _Thank rA9,_ he prays-- and how absurd _that_ thought seems. Simon has always been the one to invoke myths or muses like the supposed android messiah, not him. _Once we’re through this,_   _I’ll thank rA9 as many times as I need to,_ Markus promises.

Connor offers him the rebar again, reheated, and Markus is quick to press it to his self-inflicted wound. It’s a strange thing, feeling one’s skin sizzle shut with a noise like the red oozing of molten rock, but he can hardly bring himself to care. Not when he’s finally able to take that pump regulator out of his jacket pocket and press it back into its rightful slot, watching as Simon’s systems flare to life. The PL600 is still in stasis, of course, but it’s lighter, more akin to human sleep. His body needs time to repair itself after everything that’s happened.

For a moment, Markus and Connor just sit in silence. It feels like the world has been moving at twice its normal speed, and now has ground to a complete halt. Markus can _breathe_ again, and he does: slow, steadying breaths, lulled into a perfect rhythm by the light he can see pulsing in Simon’s chest.

“I feel that I should apologize, Markus.”

The RK200 turns, brow furrowed. “Apologize?”

Connor nods, looking for all the world like a man lost at sea. All the control and precision he’d shown while caring for Simon is gone from his face. “I was part of the team that responded to the Stratford Tower incident,” he says. “And I… I was the one who found Simon. Maybe if I hadn’t, he could have escaped.”

“Connor, you know I don’t blame you for--”

“Let me finish.” The RK800’s voice, normally an even, detached shade of blue, dips suddenly into a sickening green. Markus is startled into silence by how _raw_ it sounds. He can’t quite place the emotion-- or maybe emotions, plural. Deviancy is often tumultuous in that way.

Their shared silence returns for just a moment: Connor regaining his composure, reordering his thoughts, and Markus letting him.

“When I needed to find Jericho,” Connor begins again, “all I had to turn to was our evidence. And I was still so… so mechanically minded, then, that Simon seemed like the best option to complete my mission.” He looks away, hunches his shoulders, appearing far smaller than Markus has ever seen him. “So I used your voice,” he admits. “You have that capability too, don’t you? Mimicry?”

Markus thinks back to Stratford Tower, remembering the receptionist he’d deceived over the phone. Maybe, he realizes, he and Connor are more alike in some ways than he had initially thought. “You got Simon to give you Jericho’s location, then?”

“Yes. And he--” A shaky breath. “Markus, he gave it so _willingly_ when he thought I was you. And even back then, before I deviated, I was… moved by that, somehow. It was hard for me to comprehend why someone would allow themselves to be so vulnerable.” Connor smiles, rueful and self-deprecating. “I guess I was already starting to view deviants differently by that point,” he muses. “Earlier on, I had always insisted that emotions, that self-preservation, were glitches in a machine. But with Simon… it was different.”

Taking everything in silently, hands splayed against his thighs, Markus wishes he could say he isn’t angry. But the anger _is_ there; it simmers just under his skin, quiet and understated, and he knows that if he chose to lash out at Connor for this, Connor would _let_ him. Connor would take it all in, believing he deserved it, and would say nothing. And that, Markus thinks, is something the RK800 doesn’t deserve. No matter how wronged feels by what Connor has done, it would be equally wrong to make him pay for such a mistake. Especially one that was made when he was still more machine than man.

So Markus takes a deep breath and gives Connor the gentlest look he can manage. “I don’t think I’m the one you need to apologize to,” he says.

Connor’s eyes widen by the barest increment, betraying his surprise. He looks down at Simon and fists his hands in the fabric of his jeans. He looks painfully _lost._ “I will,” he murmurs. “Once he wakes up, I will.”

In response, Markus just nods. When he too turns to look at the PL600, gaze catching on the thirium still staining that pale face, he pictures how Simon had looked on the tower’s rooftop. How scared he’d been, and how Markus hadn’t been able to say more than a few empty words of comfort.

(He pictures how Simon had looked that previous night, too, in Jericho. How beautiful he’d been, and how Markus hadn’t been able to say any words at all, comforting or otherwise.)

Being as lost in thought as he is, Markus nearly misses Connor moving fluidly to his feet and heading from the room, footsteps silent even in the cavernous space. For a brief moment, though, he looks up and glimpses the RK800’s silhouette. Shoulders squared, spine straight; like he’d been waiting for some great burden to be lifted, and now that it has been, he can finally stand tall again.

Markus allows a little bud of hope to grow in his chest. Maybe, he thinks, they _will_ get through this. And maybe they’ll be all the better for it when they reach the other side.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jeeeeeesus lord. Sorry this chapter took me so long to get out, guys! It's the longest one I've written so far, and took a lot of turns I wasn't really expecting. I wasn't planning for Markus and Connor to talk for so long, but they insisted! This is a big turning point for our boys. Everything gets more gay from here on out lmao.
> 
> Thanks for being patient with me, and I hope y'all love this chapter.♡♡♡ Expect the next one (hopefully) much sooner!


	8. Uranus

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> VIII. URANUS  
> Sudden change or enlightenment.
> 
> [“x.”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xq5ARZElwWw)  
> 

Simon wakes slowly and yet all at once.

One moment, his world is dark and senseless, and he doesn’t even have the mind to realize that he is asleep. The next, he can feel a chill seeping into his back and the palms of his hands, can taste musty air as he draws it into his lungs.

His eyes are open now, and he stares, wide-eyed… into still more darkness.

Simon blinks once, twice, a third time. The darkness remains. _I’m blind,_ he realizes. And then it all comes rushing back to him.

_The roof. The cold rush of wind through his clothing, the cold press of a gun against his palm. Confined space filled with the noise of machinery. Silence broken by gunshots, the face of the deviant hunter, and the rapid beating of his heart in time with a hail of bullets._

_Quiet, quiet, and still more quiet. Awaking to pitch-black blindness, the measured voice of a stranger. And then…_

_I’m here to help._

_Markus’s voice. But no, it couldn’t be. Markus, coming back for him? Fingers curling around his wrist; they’re_ wrong, _too tight and cold and bruising_ . _They don’t feel like that touch against the base of his spine, nineteen vertebrae down. Simon_ panics.

_He’s plunged back into the quiet. He resurfaces a second time._

_Simon. Simon, it’s me._

_Markus’s voice again. Warm as sunlight against his face, warm as the fingers that cradle his jaw, and this time, Simon knows. Panic seeps out of him as quickly as it had come. He smiles._

_When he’s met with the quiet a final time, that voice and those hands remain in his mind on endless loop._

_Simon, I will never leave you. Never, never, never._

Back in the present, Simon reaches up to press shaking hands against his now-closed eyes. His first breath shudders in his chest. There’s something wet on his palms, and he thinks, _at least my tear ducts still work._ He laughs; it comes out as more of a sob, but even so, he’s smiling.

Because, against all odds, he is _alive._

There’s a sharp and sudden inhale of breath, and the sound of rapidly approaching footsteps. “Simon?!” someone says.

Simon doesn’t reply. The memories of cold and snow, the pain and fear of his brush with death, are all still plastered to the backs of his eyelids. He feels paralyzed by it, despite knowing that he is-- for the first time in a long time-- safe. Instead, he remains with his hands obscuring his face and tries to prevent his lungs from caving in.

“Simon,” the person says again. Their voice is one he doesn’t recognize. “I’ll-- I’ll be right back, okay? I’ll get Josh.”

 _Josh._ Simon relaxes incrementally at the thought of a familiar face. Or, well, a familiar voice. The hazy image of Josh’s expression on that rooftop hovers in front of him, and though it makes Simon’s anxiety spike as he remembers that moment, he finds himself comforted by the pain he’d seen there. The knowledge that Josh had been upset by their predicament, and that Simon’s suffering had made him suffer, too.

(It feels good to mean something to someone, he thinks. He hadn’t considered that a possibility for a long, long while.)

More echoing footsteps, then the rustle of fabric at Simon’s right as someone kneels. Though it doesn’t do much, the PL600 still lowers his hands so that he can stare into the blank space beside him. At least this way he appears a little less fragile than he feels.

The first thing Josh says to him is, “You’re _awake.”_ Like he can’t quite believe what he’s seeing. His voice thrums with nervous energy, just like it had during their wait in that service elevator in Stratford Tower. “Simon, can you hear me? Can you run a diagnostic?”

Simon… doesn’t know how to reply, at first. Where does he begin, after everything that’s happened? In lieu of answering, he does as Josh has instructed and watches as his systems inform him of any structural weaknesses. _Thirium at fifty-three percent,_ his HUD reads. Even without his eyesight, that diagnostic function remains intact. _Emergency thirium flow redirected to thoracic cavity. Recalibration of internal gyroscope recommended. Optic units irreparable; contact Cyberlife for replacements._

Not as bad as things could be, fortunately. He sighs in relief, and feels a bit of the tension in Josh’s silence bleed away, left to dissipate in the frigid air. “I’m… fine,” Simon finally says. “Mostly fine.”

Josh laughs. It sounds a bit off, too high and sharp to be normal. “That makes one of us,” he replies. At least there’s _some_ humor in his tone. Simon tries to smile up at him, but his muscles feel stiff and unused, and he’s uncertain if the point gets across.

Then, ever so gently, a hand finds his own and squeezes. The press of warm skin against his own threatens to startle him, and Simon’s throat goes tight in surprise, but then Josh is saying, “Simon, I’m so _sorry.”_ And that stops his reaction in its tracks.

Infuriatingly, Simon once again has no idea what to say. _Thank you?_ Or _me, too?_ Or something more meaningful than just a few short words? Before he has a chance to think everything through, his mouth is already forming sounds and syllables. “It’s alright,” is what ends up leaving his lips.

The silence he’s met with at first tells him Josh disagrees. “We shouldn’t have left you. We should’ve tried to take you with us, or, or--”

“Josh,” Simon interrupts. More silence. “It’s alright,” he repeats. “I understand.” Because, truthfully, he does. They all knew that sacrifices would have to be made in pursuit of their goal.

It’s just that… Simon had never expected that _he_ would be one of those sacrifices.

Either way, it’s hardly Josh’s fault that things had unfolded the way they did. And, judging by the way the hand in Simon’s squeezes tighter in acknowledgement, both of them know that _it’s alright_ means something more like, _it’s over with._ It means, _you’re forgiven._

Josh doesn’t say anything to him for a long, long moment. Not until Simon turns his head, searching blindly for the face he knows is barely more than a foot above him, and asks, “What’s… _happened?”_

That earns him another laugh, but a softer and gentler one. “You won’t believe it,” Josh replies.

They spend the better part of the next hour discussing what Simon has missed. Josh tells him about the aftermath of Stratford Tower, and the attention it had garnered them, and the way humans had become far more prone to listening after such a public display of sentience. There were debates on television about whether or not androids should be free, with humans weighing in on both sides. Josh tells him about how their plans had only grown from there, and how it had caught the attention of other deviants, until their supporters had multiplied exponentially-- even when Jericho was reduced to a sunken skeleton beneath the water.

Josh tells him about how many of their people they’d freed, and how despite their best efforts, things had grown just a bit beyond their control. And now… now, their only hope is that Markus’s offering of peace will be heard over the din.

It’s… a _lot._ Almost too much for Simon to take in, and yet at the same time, he’s hungry for the knowledge. Months in stasis will do that to someone, he supposes. He’s more than a little nervous about returning to the world he once spent every waking moment wishing he could block out.

At the mention of Markus, though, his nerves quickly and abruptly change their focus. “Where is he?” Simon asks.

Josh falls briefly silent. “You should really focus on recovering, Simon.”

Simon’s anxiety spikes, holding his heart in a vice grip, cold and needling. “Josh,” he says-- slow, like it’s meant to be a warning-- “where _is_ he?”

“Don’t worry, he’s okay!” Simon can sense the way Josh’s hands sweep upwards in a defensive gesture. “I haven’t heard from him personally in a few days, but he's okay. He’s out of range of my comms, is all, at the so-called ‘front’ of the protests. We’re here at the back, where people are avoiding the conflict. I offered to stay behind.” A pause, and the sound of Josh settling once more. Quietly, he adds, “I’m not cut out for this. This… violence.”

(Simon doesn’t need to ask after the meaning of those words; he remembers Josh’s arrival at Jericho all too well. He remembers dazed brown eyes, and glass shards buried deep in synthetic skin, and the sharp smell of potent alcohol. _Single malt whiskey, eighty proof,_ a quick scan had told him. Josh had trembled near uncontrollably in Simon’s grasp. It took him six hours before he said a single word.)

“Is that where North is, too?” he asks. “At the front?”

“She comes and goes. Even _she_ seems to want a little peace, amazingly.”

Simon smiles again, and this time it feels less like plaster. “I guess the two of you finally agree now,” he says.

“Weird, isn’t it?” Josh replies, sighing in exasperation. It manages to sound fond, though, somehow. “And all it took was starting a revolution.”

That word gives Simon pause. It seems so heavy, so _incendiary,_ for something that began in the dismal depths of Jericho’s belly. “I guess that’s what this is now, isn’t it?” Simon muses aloud.

“What, a revolution?” Josh’s hand finds his again. There’s another sigh, one that’s more than a bit world-weary. “Simon, it is the very definition of the word.”

 

Recovery, Simon discovers, is a _tedious_ business.

Most of the subsequent visits he receives are brief at best. Sometimes it’s other androids whose voices he doesn’t recognize; sometimes it’s Josh, returning to check up on him before leaving to help their new arrivals. Most of his time is spent mulling over what he’s learned, or drifting into stasis, or memorizing the feel of his shirt’s fabric beneath his fingers.

It isn’t until days later that he receives a familiar visitor.

They sit down at his side, silent as the grave, stirring him from his shallow half-sleep. Simon turns his head and waits for them to speak.

The quiet stretches on, however. It remains undisturbed until Simon chooses to break it himself. “Josh…?” he prompts.

“No,” says his visitor. Says North.

Simon takes a measured breath through parted lips. “Oh,” he replies. The mere cadence of that single word sounds weak, even to his own ears, and makes him wince. North, however, snorts indelicately at his response.

“That’s the reaction I deserve,” she agrees.

“That’s not what I--”

“Yes, it was.” Simon can hear the WR400 shift next to him, ever restless, agitation simmering off of her in waves. “And that’s fine.”

Speechlessness seems to be a common reaction for him, nowadays. This time he remains silent; unlike with Josh, Simon is far less willing to flounder for words in front of North. He tries to avoid fidgeting in the uncomfortable silence that follows.

“… I came back for a supplies run,” North says at length. “Then Josh told me you’d woken up. I figured I’d better stop by, since…” She trails off, like the energy required to speak is just too draining. That alone speaks volumes about her composure.

(Simon has never known North to be anything but fiery. Not even when they’d first met, when she’d appeared in Jericho’s halls dressed in stolen clothes that were several sizes too big. There had been crimson blood under her fingernails, and a smudge of it across her collarbone, and she’d held her jaw so tightly that Simon had feared her teeth would chip.)

“… Since Markus has been driving me insane, with all the constant brooding.”

 _That_ gets his attention. “Markus?” he repeats, sitting up just a little straighter. He feels the way North’s eyes track the movement, but at the moment, he can’t bring himself to be embarrassed.

Thankfully, she cuts right to the quick of his worries. “He’s fine. Just exhausted, and trying to do a hundred different things at once. If he didn’t have us around to stop him, he’d have run himself into the ground by now.”

Though his worry barely abates at all, even with North’s attempts at reassurance, Simon allows himself a small smile. “That does sound like Markus,” he agrees.

“Yeah.” North lets out a harsh sigh. “He’s still set on showing the humans we mean no harm. Even when we’re met with violence.” There’s the sound of fingers clenching in fabric. Under her breath, she adds, “I don’t _get_ it. To this day, I don’t understand.”

Simon shakes his head, closes his eyes. “I trust Markus’s judgement.”

“Even though he seems so calm about everything that’s happening? We’re watching our people _die_ in front of us, Simon, and he doesn’t even seem _angry_ about it.”

An image rises to the forefront of Simon’s mind. He sees the android graveyard dusted with snow. He sees hazy figures, obscured by the darkness of a moonless night-- until a glow suffuses them all. It’s Markus, pearl-white plastic exposed and glowing up to his elbows, shoulders set in a tense line. His voice is barely more than a snarl as he says, _Do not_ ever _treat an android this way again._

“No,” Simon says. “Markus _is_ angry.” He allows his sightless eyes to rove the space he knows North is occupying, and hopes for a brief second that his gaze might make her uncomfortable. He says, “Markus just doesn’t allow _his_ anger to consume him.”

From the way North’s silence seems to harden, Simon has the distinct sense that she has stiffened in shock beside him. It feels like he’s overstepped some unspoken boundary. Shame immediately blooms inside him, flushing out all the bitterness still lingering in his bones, and he bows his head as if trying to hide.

But then he hears the quiet intake of an unnecessary breath. North’s voice is so quiet that Simon barely hears it, even in the relative quiet of this makeshift hospital ward. “No,” she replies. “No, he doesn’t. And he shouldn’t.”

A fleeting brush of fingers against his shoulder is all the physical contact he receives. Then North is moving to stand, and drawing in another breath, this one even shakier than the last. She leaves without another word. Simon is left feeling like he’s witnessed something extraordinary.

The raw, open wound between them is far from healed. But this, he thinks… _this_ is a start.

 

Not twenty-four hours pass before Simon decides to take his first steps.

He’s never considered himself a restless person. Androids, especially those of his own model, are programmed with patience to rival that of saints; they have to be, to manage the housekeeping and child-rearing they’re meant to be tasked with.

It’s hard to remain a creature of habit, though, when that habit consists only of lying motionless for days on end.

Josh had been very adamant that he should avoid moving as much as possible. He’s still low on thirium, despite the several bags he’s been rationed since waking. But seventy percent should be enough to manage more than his most basic functions, he thinks, and the damage to his thigh is the least serious injury he’s suffered. So Simon rises from stasis one late afternoon and decides he is well and truly fed up with his sedentary lifestyle.

He sits up, just as he has on several occasions before. There’s no rush of blood from his head, as his systems are quick to temper the flow of thirium through his veins. _So far, so good,_ he tells himself. Moving like his limbs are leaden, he draws his knees close to his body, then rocks forward until he’s braced on his palms and the balls of his feet. Artificial muscles tense under synthetic skin as his legs support his weight for the first time in literal weeks.

It’s with a bright bloom of triumph in his chest that Simon finally stands. But as he takes his first few steps, he realizes the flaw in his plan.

He has absolutely no idea what this room looks like.

Of course, being blind is something he’d already taken into account before starting all of this. He hadn’t been awake when Markus had brought him here, and so the only impression he has of the space is that it’s cavernous, and echoes even with the voices drifting in from the adjoining room. Dealing with this shortcoming had been an inevitability.

But standing here now, shuttered still in darkness, it seems more… daunting than he’d anticipated.

Simon grits his teeth, frustrated with himself. What are the others out doing? Saving lives, leading a revolution, brokering peace? And here _he_ is, paralyzed by the thought of a mere misplaced footstep.

In the end, that sobering thought is what coaxes him into moving. He turns his head from side to side, trying to gauge where exactly he is in the room. Android hearing is far more sensitive than that of humans; based on the echoes he’s heard day in and day out since his arrival, he knows there’s an outside wall to his left. He turns and presses a palm against cold concrete. The other remains outstretched, as if to shield him from a blow-- which, he supposes, _could_ happen, if he ends up unexpectedly meeting another wall.

He takes a step. When his legs don’t give way beneath him, he takes another. And another, and another. He follows the perimeter of the room with his uneven gait, until he turns two corners and comes upon an empty space to his left: a doorway. The air flow filtering through tells him this is the main room and has doors leading out of the building.

Fingers curling around the doorframe, Simon tries to get his bearings. He’s forced to confront the fact that he doesn’t really know _what_ he’s trying to accomplish. Now that he’s managed to move around a bit, maybe he ought to return to his--

“Simon? What are you doing?!”

The PL600 winces. Josh’s voice reaches him at a decibel that’s not quite shouting, but certainly isn’t normal speaking volume either. He’s reminded distinctly of the tone used to scold petulant children.

“Hello, Josh,” he tries. “I didn’t realize you were back.”

The PJ500 had switched places briefly with North, in the hopes that he could help with the peacekeeping efforts. Probably a wise decision; based on what Simon has heard, Josh’s unwavering pacifism and level-headedness are what Markus desperately needs right now.

“I just arrived.” Josh’s voice sounds closer now, so Simon is able to avoid flinching when a hand closes gently around his right upper arm. “I brought more supplies, and--”

“Simon!”

At the sudden cry of his name, high and musical like the flutter of windchimes, Simon blinks in surprise. Pattering footsteps move rapidly in his direction, and he feels a pair of little arms wrap themselves around his waist. “Isaac?” he asks.

“Yes!” The confirmation is muffled against his shirt, and makes Simon break out into a wide smile.

“He found his way to where Markus has set up camp,” Josh explains. There’s warmth in his words, Simon’s disobedience briefly forgotten as both of them focus their attention on the YK500. “I insisted that he come back here with me.”

“Markus remembered me,” Isaac adds, bubbling with barely contained excitement.

Simon rests a hand on the child’s head. “Of course he did. You’re hard to forget.”

There’s a split second of silence that Simon thinks must be filled with one of Isaac’s own sunny smiles. He feels a chin press into his stomach as the boy tilts his head back to look up-- and there’s a quiet, almost theatrical gasp. Simon doesn’t need to guess why.

“I’m a little worse for wear right now,” he says.

Isaac remains quiet as he studies the deep black of Simon’s damaged sclerae, and the rings of blue that act as imitation irises. Softly, he admits, “They _are_ a little scary.”

It’s said like some great, profound secret, and that makes Simon laugh. “They are,” he agrees. “But they won’t be for long.”

“Not if you avoid overloading your systems, they won’t be,” Josh mutters. The hand on Simon’s arm pushes at him, insistent. “Simon, I know it must be hard for you to just sit here, but think of _my_ health, at the very least.”

There isn’t much heat to the plea, but Simon still does feel a bit guilty at how _tired_ Josh sounds. As consolation, he turns and allows himself to be led back to his makeshift cot. He sits, wincing as his joints reacclimate themselves to the movement, and listens as someone-- Isaac, judging by the sound of it-- takes a seat at his side.

From somewhere above his head, Josh says, “I’ll be back in a bit, alright? We have a few others who came from the front, but after they’re cared for, I’ll have some blue blood for you, too.” After a brief pause, his steps retreat, leaving Simon and Isaac alone.

“... He told me to keep an eye on you,” the boy says, sheepish yet clearly still smiling.

“Is that so?”

“Yes. He mouthed it so you wouldn’t hear.”

Simon shakes his head in mock disappointment, lips curling in a smirk. He had thought that moment of silence had sounded a bit too _poignant._ “Taking advantage of my injuries like that,” he sighs. “That’s unfair.”

“But you’ll be fixed soon,” Isaac says eagerly.

“Well…” Something in Simon’s programming fights against being so candid with a child-- but YK500s are, in reality, anything but children. “I might be fixed soon, yes. But it’s hard to find the right biocomponents for me around here. Especially eyes.”

“We’ll find them though!” the boy insists. Simon is about to gently protest once more, but then Isaac is continuing. “Markus told me he would.”

 _“Markus_ did?” The PL600 tries and fails to fight the way his voice raises in disbelief at those words. It’s not that he doesn’t think Markus would try to help him-- far from it. That much had been proven when Simon had been pulled out of deep stasis and brought here. But… with everything going on right now, he hadn’t considered his minor repairs to be a priority.

“When I found him, I asked him if he knew where you were.” A bit of Isaac’s usual energy dips from excited to nervous as he recalls the memory. Simon’s heart clenches just a bit at the sound, parental instincts buried deep in his coding reacting in empathy. “He said you were hurt,” Isaac explains, “but that you were safe, and that he was looking for parts to fix you. He said you needed eyes the most.”

Simon nods as he takes in the words. It’s true that most of his internal damage has been repaired already by thirium. Blue blood contains the chemicals and nanomachines necessary to repair most structural damage, especially when aided by outside forces like-- in his case-- cauterization. He needs his thirium at full capacity before he can be considered entirely healed, but apart from that, everything is at the very least functional. That is, apart from his eyes.

In truth, Simon has gotten by with far more life-threatening malfunctions.

(Sometimes, of course, it hadn’t been a _malfunction_ at all. It had been the press of thick needles beneath his plastic casing, siphons for the precious blue of his veins. It had been the acute pain of his most vital biocomponents being squeezed, weeping like wounds. It had been the precise and deliberate swing of a fist or boot against his stomach. It had been the hand at the back of his neck as he doubled over and coughed up thirium like bile.)

In truth, Simon has always been able to manage to survive with only the bare essentials. So Markus doing this for him, thinking of this for him, is… different. It’s _new._

“Markus has other things to worry about,” he says. His voice comes out strained and wrong and he doesn’t know _why._ He tries to smile, to lighten the load that’s suddenly settled over his shoulders, and only half-succeeds. “Besides,” he adds, “even if I can’t see Markus once he comes to visit, I can still be with him.”

Isaac is listening intently, and _thinking_ intently, based on the weighty silence that follows. In fact, he’s quiet for so long that Simon feels a little seed of worry grow in his chest. Has he said too much, he wonders? Has he upset the boy without realizing? Simon opens his mouth to speak again, to cover up his emotion with something more superficial and lighthearted, or--

“You look different when you talk about Markus,” Isaac says. “You smile, but it sounds like it hurts. Like when it hurts here.” A tiny hand presses against Simon’s chest, right over his pump regulator. “Like it hurt when I was broken,” the boy murmurs.

Simon’s words die on his tongue, and he goes _rigid._ All he can feel is that touch, and the needling, burning pain that’s growing beneath it, this pain that’s lingered in the recesses of his body for weeks, and weeks, and weeks.

It feels like holding his breath. It feels like suddenly, finally being able to _breathe._ And everything falls into place.

“Does it?” he asks. The question falls faintly, _stupidly,_ from his lips. He doesn’t know what else to say.

Isaac gives what must be a resolute nod, unware of the way Simon’s world is crumbling from his simple observation. The kind of observation only a child could make. “I don’t think Markus wants you to hurt,” he continues. “So that’s why he wants to find your eyes.”

Simon nods, still numb beyond belief. “Isaac--” His voice breaks on the second syllable. He tries again. “Isaac, I…”

He trails off again, and never finishes. Instead they sit in silence, Isaac’s hand slipping into his own, thumb pressed to the meat of Simon’s palm. Eventually Josh returns with his rationed thirium. There should be extra, he says, and he’ll send Isaac back with more once it’s all distributed.

Josh and Isaac leave. Simon lies awake, overcome, and tries to calm the nervous stutter of his heart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> JESUS. This chapter ALSO took me forever! My notes for it in my outline were very vague, so it took me a bit to really figure out how I wanted to have everything flow. There were several possibilities I entertained, but in the end, this is just sort of what happened lol. So it worked out I guess!
> 
> Hope you all enjoy! See you in the penultimate chapter!


	9. Neptune

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> IX. NEPTUNE  
> Dreams, healing, and compassion.
> 
> [“I’m only honest when it rains.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6CpBkR25ecc)  
> [If I time it right, the thunder breaks](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6CpBkR25ecc)  
> [when I open my mouth.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6CpBkR25ecc)  
> [I want to tell you, but I don’t know how.”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6CpBkR25ecc)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You guys get this chapter early cause of how long the last one took! Enjoy Markus's gay panic. ♡

Markus’s breath clouds the air as he makes his way down a wide, open stretch of abandoned road. Even he, an advanced prototype, is starting to feel the cold. The winter winds they’ve been fighting against for days have kicked up into a proper storm. It whistles through broken store windows and scatters snow over their makeshift barricades. He can see the shapes of his people huddling for warmth, protecting those who are damaged and therefore more compromised by the weather.

Before the revolution, Markus had never realized that silence could be violent. Now, his snow-muffled surroundings all but set his teeth on edge.

No more than an hour ago, North had arrived back at their base of operations with news. “We’ve found more casualties,” she’d told him, the outrage in her voice palpable. “There may be some survivors, but we won’t know until we look.”

That had been at 3:26 am. The human activity across what might be considered no man’s land-- a standoff that has yet to end, even as negotiations are being proposed-- has long since quieted. That lull should give them enough time to carry out the search and rescue North had proposed. A twenty-four hour day is an advantage androids have over their creators. It’s one that Markus is thankful for, if this trip is going to go off without complications.

At his left, North exhales, long and slow. The temperature difference makes it look like she’s breathing smoke. Her stride is calm but careful, like that of a wary predator. “It shouldn’t be far,” she says.

“Who gave you the tip for this?”

“Just someone we met while out doing rounds.” She shrugs. “I didn’t catch their name. It seemed urgent though.”

Markus grimaces as he pictures what _urgent_ might mean. He supposes things could be worse. There could be more anger and fear, more violence and more death-- but even one lost soul is too many. He’s starting to feel weighed down by it all, images of dimming eyes and congealing blood haunting even his waking moments.

Following North’s lead, they round the corner onto a side street, deeper into the city and away from the east front. The pathway narrows until the buildings around them seem to close in on all sides. Markus has to fight the urge to hug himself in some hindbrain urge for comfort. He feels more exposed than he should in such a confined space, and briefly wonders if this is what the beginnings of paranoia might look like.

North comes to a stop and turns to their right. “We can cut through here,” she says.

It’s a side alley bracketed by rusting wire fence. As Markus peers into its depths, he thinks he sees some hulking shape at the other end-- one that he recognizes. He frowns and steps forward into the shadows.

Glass crunches underneath a layer of snow as he walks. Squinting-- more out of habit than necessity-- at the walls of the alley, he begins to see the casualties North had mentioned. Slumped bodies with limbs bent at odd angles, dark LEDs signaling the kind of death no android can return from, half-evaporated thirium invisible to the human eye.

He stops to inspect an HR400 that has long since deactivated. Their eyes are the right component, he notices, but the wrong color.

Burning shame floods through him at the thought. Markus looks away, swallows around a sudden nausea rising in his throat, and clenches his jaw so tight that his HUD warns him of the pressure. Hadn’t he promised himself he’d never scavenge from the dead again? Not unless his life depended on it?

Whether he likes it or not, maybe this revolution is starting to eat away at him. That thought frightens him more than it should.

His companion, surprisingly, has had nothing to say about his morose silence. That’s unusual for her. Markus turns to look over his shoulder, back in the direction they’d come from. “North,” he begins, “I--”

He stops mid-sentence. The alley is completely deserted.

Markus tamps down on the fear welling up inside him and moves to stand, fists clenched at his sides. “North?” he calls again. No response.

At the opposite end of the alleyway, there’s the sound of what might be footsteps skittering over stone. Had North gone ahead without him realizing?

Despite what might be his better judgement, Markus continues further down his narrow path, following the source of the noise. His eyes still skim the androids around him for signs of movement, but no such luck. Some of them look like they’ve been here for _weeks._ They’re encrusted with frost and their skin has gone piebald in great splotches, revealing their pale exoskeletons. If anyone were to wake up here, he thinks, it would be like emerging from one nightmare and entering another.

Broken windows loom around him like yawning mouths full of sharpened teeth. They seem to press closer the deeper he goes, especially with the way the bodies have begun to pile up, looking less like people and more like scrapped parts. In fact, the illusion of ever-shrinking space, surrounded by the dead on all sides, reminds him of…

Recognition lights up in the back of Markus’s mind. Fear finally closes its icy grip around his throat, and he breaks into a run.

His thirium pump quickens in his chest at some perceived threat, then pounds in doubletime as he sees hands reach out for him from walls of mangled limbs. They catch on his clothes and skin and threaten to drag him under. The falling snow has turned to sleet, drenching Markus’s clothes and weighing him down, and then thunder claps in the air above the city, so blindingly loud that it makes his eyes water. They water until Markus realizes his face is streaked with tears.

He fights against the hold of a hundred beseeching corpses. The alley has been swallowed up by this mass of butchered machinery; all that’s left is a square of light signaling the open air beyond, and the imposing shape he stills sees on the horizon.

He’s close enough now to recognize its outstretched wings and pair of hands folded in prayer.

Just as he reaches the mouth of the alley, a hand catches him by the neck, thumb against his throat and fingers curling over his nape. It nearly immobilizes him, but Markus has enough control to turn his head and follow the length of the pale arm up to a frighteningly familiar face.

“You tricked me before,” the android says. Blind eyes pierce Markus to his very core. “I won’t fall for it again.” And the fingers around his throat begin to squeeze, and squeeze, and--

 

_“Markus!”_

He’s wrenched out of stasis so suddenly that it makes his head swim with vertigo. Markus blinks, lashes clinging together with residual tears, and watches as his systems force a reset of his optical feed. His vision fizzes out, then back in, like a channel laden with white noise.

Sitting in front of him is Simon, propped up on one elbow, the fingers of his free hand curled gently around Markus’s wrist. His eyes might still be sightless, but the concern there is all too clear.

Heart still thrumming in his chest, Markus steadies himself with a slow breath. “Simon,” he replies. His voice frays as it leaves his mouth and makes him cringe. “Sorry, I-- I didn’t mean to fall asleep.”

Markus receives a look that tells him the apology was unnecessary-- but it had felt right, all the same. “I didn’t realize you were here,” Simon says. He looks caught off guard, and his fingers twitch against Markus’s skin as though they want to tighten their grasp.

“I only just arrived. You were in stasis, and I… I didn’t want to wake you.”

Truth be told, he’d been meaning to make this trip for days now. But there had always been something to attend to, some crisis to avert, some statement to make as the humans mulled over the terms of their compromise with stubborn slowness. Markus hadn’t been able to tear himself away-- not when so many lives rested on his shoulders.

Once he’d finally been able to escape, he’d arrived to find Simon in deep stasis, a state meant to speed up his body’s healing process. Markus had been determined not to disturb him.

Now, all he's accomplished is the exact opposite.

Based on how easily Markus himself had slipped into unconsciousness, though, North had been right about him needing a break. Being on the front for so long has run him ragged. He’d never expected that becoming the figurehead of this revolution would be easy, but experiencing it firsthand is something else entirely.

“You _could_ have woken me, you know. I wouldn’t have minded.”

The words seem carefully chosen, even for Simon. They make Markus feel short of breath for a reason he can’t quite place. “Well,” he says, smile self-deprecating, “I’ve managed to do that now, haven’t I?”

Simon’s dark eyes crease at the corners as he unknowingly returns the smile.

A sudden thought dawns on Markus. “How did you know it was me?” he asks.

And Simon-- dear, sweet Simon-- has the gall to look _guilty_ at the question. “I, um.” His vacant gaze ticks downwards to where their hands are still pressed together, a microcosm of affection. “I interfaced with you,” he murmurs. “Just for a second. It was an accident, mostly, because I could feel you moving as you slept, and your hand was already there, so when I heard you dreaming I sort of just--”

 _“Simon,”_ Markus says. The PL600 falls silent immediately, eyes wide, face tinged with a slight blush. Markus has to fight the urge to smile at that vulnerable expression. “It’s fine,” he soothes. “Thank you.”

“… Oh.” Simon’s blush moves from gentle cyan to deep sapphire in the span of a single moment. When he blinks, Markus can see his blond eyelashes flutter in the moon’s cool light. Almost shyly, he says, “I’m glad,” and there’s that _color_ again. That ultraviolet shade, bright and disarming as ever, drawing Markus closer like a moth to a flame. It brings him a brief but precious moment of peace.

“It’s strange,” he muses, once the silence has stretched comfortably between them. “I never realized we’d be able to dream.”

Simon hums, thoughtful. “It only started happening to me once I deviated.”

“Same for me.” Markus pauses as half-formed memories of previous dreams fill his head-- dreams, as well as nightmares. “I almost wish we couldn’t,” he admits.

(The image of Simon’s face swimming before him, delicate fingers clutching his throat, is a wound that will take far too long to heal. In that moment fabricated by his deepest fears, the voice that normally washed ultraviolet over his frayed nerves had instead been an absolute black, like the boundless void of space. Devoid of any true color, it was the first time Markus hadn’t been able to place a sound’s hue. It had _terrified_ him.)

Simon is quiet, almost as if he’s watching Markus, though the RK200 knows that to be impossible. “I do too sometimes,” he replies. His lips parted as he draws a quick breath and, with a sort of careful understanding, adds, “I don’t blame you for feeling that way.”

Though they’ve been apart for some time, Markus recognizes the insinuation for what it is. If Simon had interfaced with him to force him to wake, there’s no doubt that he caught of glimpse of Markus’s thoughts as he did so-- and along with them, the nightmare. Markus thinks that he ought to feel more than a slight flicker of embarrassment at that, but… he’s never experienced shame the same way around Simon. Not even when the shame has to do _with_ Simon, and with the way Markus had abandoned him on that rooftop so long ago.

“You _should_ blame me,” Markus finds himself saying. A surprising amount of bitterness pours out with those words. He thinks for a moment that maybe, if Simon would let him feel ashamed, his own emotions would seem less like so many snakes coiling tight around his insides. He thinks for a moment that maybe it would be _easier._

Simon smiles, and its corners are melancholy-tinged. He coaxes Markus’s hand to turn so its palm faces upwards. Haltingly, like he’s afraid of being burned, he presses their skin together once more and lets it fade away to pure white.

Their thoughts come together in a slow, tentative slide. Markus can sense Simon’s presence like a balm over his abraded mind. He allows _relief-gratitude-calm_ to flow across their connection, and when it returns to him twofold, he’s surprised to see that same impalpable hue blossom before his eyes. Simon, it seems, does more than _speak_ in ultraviolet.

Then something else reaches Markus. It starts off slow, just a trickle, but soon grows into a deluge. A single emotion. Nothing but _forgiveness, forgiveness, forgiveness._

Markus’s heart stutter-stops in his chest. He tries to draw a breath, but finds that his lungs seem to have locked in place. It’s as if he’s entirely frozen, helpless to the emotion washing over him. He has to squeeze his eyes shut to prevent his tears from falling.

It’s too _much,_ he thinks. Too much feeling all at once. Almost against his will, he pulls his hand out of Simon’s grasp.

The sudden movement breaks their connection instantly. Markus’s systems come to life again and allow him one shuddering inhale. For the second time in less than an hour, he watches the world struggle into focus before his eyes. The pads of his fingers burn with phantom pain, sharp and blistering like they’ve been scalded, as his skin slides back into place.

When he looks at Simon, the expression he sees there is nothing short of _agonized._ And Markus realizes how his withdrawal must have seemed far too much like rejection.

“No, Simon, I--” Markus reaches out to rest a hand gingerly over Simon’s once more. He forges a connection for just long enough that he can pour out a wordless apology alongside the uneven cadence of his voice. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I’m just…” He finds himself laughing, though it’s muffled by the tears still clogging his throat. “I’m just… overwhelmed. It happens easily, these days.”

Simon’s expression loses its pained edges, softens in understanding. “You need to take better care of yourself,” he replies.

“So I’ve been told.”

There’s a pensive beat of silence as Simon bows his head, eyes scanning the ground, looking for something he cannot see. Then he sits up, shifting his weight so that he can reach the blankets beneath his prone form. He pulls one free and lays it at his side. One pale hand spreads over the fabric in an attempt to smooth it out. Realizing his intentions, Markus moves to help. The “bed” they end up making isn’t exactly glamorous, but it’s no worse than his usual arrangement. He barely takes note of the cold concrete underneath him as he lies down, body turned to face his companion.

“Eight hours of uninterrupted stasis,” Simon instructs. His gaze meets Markus’s in a surprising imitation of sight.

Markus opens his mouth to reply-- and is struck, almost violently, by the realization that he can feel Simon’s breath washing over him. They're separated by only a few inches of chilly night air. Like this, he can see each blond eyelash, every striation in those hollow blue irises. The barest hint of color is still visible under pale skin. Markus memorizes its hue and imagines it smudging like paint beneath his thumb.

 _Beautiful,_ he thinks. _Simon is beautiful._  

The realization is near earth-shattering. Earth-shattering, and yet as soon as it occurs, Markus knows that it is anything but. He’s felt it hundreds of times before, in all their shared and private and mundane moments. He’s known it for a long, long time.

Like the planets aligning, those feelings have just simply, finally been brought into focus.

When he speaks next, Markus prays that the shake in his voice isn’t as obvious as it seems. “Simon,” he says, “we aren’t human. We don’t need a consistent sleep schedule.”

It’s a ridiculous, inane thing to say-- but it makes Simon smile. “Pretend that you do,” he insists. “Just this once.” His heliotrope words linger in their shared space. The request, so sweetly posed, is one that Markus finds himself incapable of opposing.

In his ensuing stasis, he does not dream.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Only one chapter left, folks-- and then maybe a super special epilogue? ;^)


	10. Venus

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> X. VENUS  
> Beauty, love, sensuality, and comfort.  
>    
> ["I was a billion little pieces](https://youtu.be/h8VfhcvAJzw)  
> ['til you pulled me into focus.](https://youtu.be/h8VfhcvAJzw)  
> [Astronomy in reverse:](https://youtu.be/h8VfhcvAJzw)  
> [it was me who was discovered.](https://youtu.be/h8VfhcvAJzw)  
> [(I never thought I'd find you](https://youtu.be/h8VfhcvAJzw)  
> [when suddenly I saw you.)"](https://youtu.be/h8VfhcvAJzw)  
> 

It’s on a cold day in January that they all finally see the fruits of their labor. News travels fast through the android population-- even faster than it does for the humans-- and Simon hears the announcement mere minutes after it occurs.

“The FBI has agreed to meet with Markus,” Josh tells him. His voice is hushed with excitement, as if talking too loudly might somehow reverse the decision. “A truce has been established so they can discuss our compromise.”

 _About time,_ Simon thinks. During his few visits, Markus had been sure to inform the PL600 of all their proposal’s inner workings. In terms of what the humans were willing to accept, he’d explained, the androids were asking for a lot. Even so, it was better to lay out all their conditions at once than to try to ask for them in increments. It was an upfront and above-board way of negotiating. The humans, however, had still been less than receptive.

Until now, apparently. Simon listens as Josh relays the details of the meeting; the PJ500 had attended, of course, advocate for diplomacy that he is. The hopeful undercurrent to his words sets Simon on edge in the best, most painful of ways. _Maybe,_ he thinks, just _maybe_ this will be the beginning of the end.

Within the week, the decision is made.

Simon wakes one morning to the sound of a voice across their comms, powerful and resonant like the tides of the ocean. _We’ve done it,_ the voice says. _We’ve done it._ And suddenly, what had seemed impossible mere months ago is now in their grasp.

He’s quick to shake himself out of the remnants of his stasis. Thanks to hours of practice, he’s gotten used to feeling his way around the room-- that, and the slowly building uproar from their base’s main room is hard to miss. Clearly the mental message had reached more than just himself.

(That had been Markus’s voice, soft but strong inside his head. He’d thought it had come to him alone-- and for a fleeting moment, jealousy flares in the pit of his stomach.)

Simon follows the sound and meets with a veritable swarm of fellow androids. The jostling movement disorients him for a moment, but then there’s a hand at his sleeve, and a small voice calling his name.

“Isaac,” he says in reply, already smiling, already opening his arms wide in invitation.

He’s hit with the full force of the tiny android’s weight; if he hadn’t been prepared, it might’ve knocked him off his feet. “It’s happened!” mumbles a voice against his stomach. Fingers curl in the fabric of his shirt and squeeze once, twice, as if venting Isaac’s excitement.

“It has,” he agrees. Now he can’t _stop_ smiling. What a perfect problem to have, after everything they’ve all been through. Simon wouldn’t want it any other way.

After that, he’s quickly swept up into the celebration. Isaac remains at his side as his guiding hand. Other androids surround them, voices familiar and new, each one radiating the same vibrant energy. Everyone is _alive._ Of course, they always have been-- it’s just that now, finally, that word is on its way to becoming law.

 _We’re alive,_ Simon thinks again. It echoes in his head, deafening, triumphant: alive, alive, alive.

It takes just over a day for Markus and his inner circle return from the makeshift human-android summit. By then, anticipation is crawling under Simon’s skin like the live wires that make up his nerves. He considers himself to be a patient person, but even he has limits.

(Quietly, he tells himself that he is not impatient for the warmth of Markus’s touch and voice. Even after his realization-- even now that everything has slotted into place-- old habits die hard.)

He is, unfortunately, not the first to “see” Markus. Simon is sitting in bed, fidgeting, fingers flexing in the late afternoon sun he can feel against his skin-- and that's when he hears it. A commotion like before, but somehow louder and yet more hushed all at once. It takes him a moment to realize the strange undertone is due to androids speaking not only mouth-to-mouth, but mind-to-mind.

 _Here,_ someone whispers in disbelief. _He's here, they're here, they're back._

Of course Markus would return home to a welcoming committee; Simon would never deny him that. The last thing the RK200 deserves is to come in the back door like a thief. That doesn't mean, however, that his stomach doesn't clench tight at the thought of meeting Markus again in front of a hundred watchful eyes.

It feels like ages since they've been together. The recent decision regarding their human-ness-- their _humanity_ \-- only makes that stretch feel longer, almost infinite. Like the last time they were together, they had been on opposite sides of some great divide.

He lets out a sharp breath through his nose and shakes off his train of thought. _Ridiculous._ _You're being ridiculous._

“Simon?”

His head whips so quickly towards the voice that it nearly makes his neck ache. “Markus?”

There's the sound of long, sure strides coming towards him, followed by the patter of many others like the fall of rain. Simon is halfway standing by the time Markus reaches his side. When a warm hand closes itself around his wrist, the other resting at the small of his back, it feels electric.

“Are you okay?” Markus asks.

“Fine.” He sounds barely just. The grip on his arm squeezes once, reassuring.

“Markus,” says the voice of Josh. “Should we make an announcement?”

There's a pause that Simon chooses, perhaps against his better judgement, to interpret as reluctance. Markus tightens his hold one more time, and then his hand slips away. “Yes. You're right.”

Simon can practically hear him turning, can practically _feel_ those two-toned eyes on him. “Come with me,” Markus says. It's a statement, but it sounds like a question. It sounds like asking permission.

Warmth suffuses Simon's insides. “Of course,” he replies.

The crowd moves with them like a great school of sea life, eddying in frantic circles, Markus at the epicenter. They return to the shelter's main room so that the acoustics might work in their favor. And work, they do.

“This is a great victory for our cause,” Markus tells them all, and hardly has to raise his voice at all for it to go echoing all the way to the rafters. “But we have to remain vigilant. We have to remain _careful._ This is not the end, not by any stretch.” He sounds solemn, regal, but there's a melody to his words that betrays his excitement.

“Celebrate this,” he adds after a pause. “We deserve it.”

Cheers erupt all around them, and Simon feels a weight lift from his chest that he hadn't known was there.

As he listens to the noise, a hand grabs him by the arm once more, and he hears Markus say, “This way, Simon.”

He follows without question. Josh’s voice-- Markus needs a moment, please give him some space, he’ll be back soon-- trails off into the distance. All the noise becomes overwhelming far too quickly, and he appreciates the respite as Markus leads them back into the familiar air of Simon's quarters.

“Sit,” he says, voice gentle.

Simon does. He looks up, head tracking the noise of Markus crouching down in front of him. There's a rustling noise like the flight of startled birds. “What is it?”

“Well.” A pause. The rustling continues, then stops. Markus sighs, and it sounds… embarrassed? “It only took a ceasefire from the military and a week of diplomatic maneuvering, but I finally found what I'd been looking for.”

Simon blinks. “What?”

A hand cradles his, and a small box is placed in his palm. He feels its smooth surface until his nails find a groove and pull.

One brush of his fingertips tells him everything.

“Oh,” he says, his voice small. “Markus, you didn't have to--”

“I did.” Another hand slides in alongside his and pulls one of the delicate spheres from its casing. Simon knows, with a surety he hadn't thought himself capable of, that their irises are blue.

“Will you help me?” he asks Markus. He's reminded of the maintenance he’d needed all those months ago with his temperature regulator. _Nineteen vertebrae down._

“Of course.” Markus's fingers glide over his own as they remove the package from his hands and set it aside.

As it turns out, replacing optical components is certainly the most… unsettling of any repair he's had.

“Ready?”

Sucking in a breath through his teeth, Simon nods. “Go ahead.”

Though he can't see, the distinct feeling of his eye being removed from its socket is enough to give him a strange sort of vertigo. He can feel the flow of air over the suddenly empty space, and he swallows hard, palms pressed against his thighs.

With a strangely noiseless slide, his new left eye is put into place. “Close it,” Markus instructs, even as Simon is already doing so. His new parts need to calibrate to their host before they can take in any sort of complex information-- like, for example, actually _seeing._

The other eye is removed and replaced in much the same way. Markus's hands are gentle, almost painfully so, as they cradle Simon's jaw. They wait together in tense silence.

“Okay,” Markus says. “Open.”

When he does, he can see nothing but blurred shapes and colors for one terrifying moment. It looks like an Impressionist painting draped over his eyes. Vaguely, Simon wonders if this is what Markus had meant when he said he'd been an artist. He considers asking, but his nerves silence him.

His lips part. He's on the verge of speaking Markus's name, his vision still incomprehensible, his fingers slowly curling unbidden around Markus's wrists.

But then something shifts.

The first thing he sees is a warm face smattered with freckles, so numerous that they look like stars.

Simon blinks, again and again. Almost hungrily, his eyes map out a path over those features, as if trying to make up for lost time. He breathes, and on the exhale, says: “Markus.”

And Markus smiles. “Hey.”

Like an eclipse, they fall finally and perfectly into place.

Just as he'd always hoped-- just as he'd always dreamed-- their kiss is pure sunlight. Markus is warm against him, hands still at his jaw, holding him in place. A thumb brushes over the curve of his cheek and Simon all but melts. Inside, he feels _golden._

When they break apart, he almost doesn't want to open his eyes again. It is too kind, too generous for him to have so much-- surely, if he is allowed his sight, he cannot also have this. It's more than he deserves.

“Simon.”

Though it's no more than his name, something about Markus's tone makes it sound precious. _It's alright,_ it says. _It's alright._

Simon allows himself to look. Two eyes meet his own: one blue, one green. He is instantly reminded of the horizon, that sliver of space where earth meets sky, and he feels at peace.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IT'S FINALLY DONE. To those of you who've stuck around, congrats and thank you!!!! I've had a really busy past several months; only just recently was I able to pick up this story again and feel motivated and inspired for the final chapter. 
> 
> And now, Simon and Markus have their happy ending. I hope you all enjoyed! ♡♡♡ Stick around for more fics soon to come. Now that I have more time, there's more on the horizon!


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